SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND 


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X  '•:■■•_  -■■     ■  ,i"v 

i#k"" 

■>::.," -^ 

SHAKESPEARE'S 
ENGLAND 


BY 


WILLIAM    WINTER 


-^J/ 


New  Edition,  Revised,  with  Illustrations 


MACMILLAN    AND    CO. 


AND     LONDON 


1895 


All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1892, 
By  MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 


Illustrated  Edition, 

Copyright,  1893, 

By  MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 


First  published  elsewhere. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped  by  Macmillan  &  Co.,  April,  1892.  Reprinted 
November,  1892;  January,  1893. 

Illustrated  edition,  revised  throughout,  in  crown  8vo,  set  up  and 
electrotyped  June,  1893.     Reprinted  October,  1893;  August,  1895. 


Norfaooti  press 

J,  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  -  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Musa.  U.S.A. 


vn 

\nc-  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SAMXA  BARBARA 


1?^5 


TO 

lijttelaixi  Eetti 

IN   HONOUR   OF   EXALTED   VIRTUES 

ADORNING   A   LIFE   OF 

NOBLE   ACHIEVEMENT   AND   PATIENT    KINDNESS 

AND   IN   REMEMBRANCE   OF 

FAITHFUL   AND   GENTLE   FRIENDSHIP 

I   DEDICATE   THIS   BOOK 


"  Turn  Dieae,  si  quid  loqiiar  niidieiiduvi^ 
Vocis  accedet  bona  pars  " 


PREFACE    TO    THE    ILLUSTRATED    EDITION 
OF   SHAKESPEARES   ENGLAND 


The  favour  ii'ith  which  this  book  lias  been  received, 
alike  ill  Great  Britain  and  America,  is  thought  to 
warrant  a  reproduction  of  it  with  pictorial  embellish- 
ment, and  accordingly  it  is  offered  in  the  present  form. 
I  have  revised  the  text  for  this  reprint,  and  my  friend 
Mr.  George  P.  Brett,  of  the  house  of  Messrs.  Mac- 
millan  and  Company,  —  at  zuhose  suggestion  the  pictorial 
edition  zuas  undertaken,  —  has  superzised  the  choice  of 
pictures  for  its  adornment.  The  approval  that  the  work 
has  elicited  is  a  source  of  deep  gratification.  It  signifies 
that  my  endeavour  to  reflect  the  gentle  sentiment  of 
English  landscape  and  the  rcnnantic  character  of  English 
rural  life  has  not  praved  altogether  in  vain.  It  also 
shozvs  that  an  appeal  may  confidently  be  made,  —  irre- 
spective of  transitory  literary  fashions  and  of  popular 
caprice,  —  to  the  love  of  tJie  ideal,  the  taste  for  simplicity, 
and  the  sentiment  of  veneration.  In  these  zcritings  there 
IS,  I  hope,  a  profound  practical  deference  to  the  perfect 
standard  of  style  that  is  represented  by  such  illustrious 

exemplars    as   Addison,    Goldsmith,    Sterne,    and   Gray. 

I 


2  PREFACE 

TJiis  frail  fabric  may  perish:  that  standard  is  im- 
mortal; and  whatever  merit  this  book  may  possess  is 
due  to  an  instinctive  and  passionate  devotion  to  the 
ideal  denoted  by  those  shinitig  names.  These  sketches 
were  written  ont  of  love  for  the  subject.  The  first 
book  of  them,  called  The  Trip  to  England,  reprinted, 
zvith  changes,  from  the  New  York  Tribune,  was  made 
for  me,  at  the  De  Vinne  Press.  The  subsequent 
grozvth  of  the  ivork  is  traced  i)i  the  earlier  Preface, 
JiereivitJi  reprinted.  The  title  of  Shakespeare's  Eng- 
land zvas  given  to  it  when  the  first  English  edition 
was  published,  by  Mr.  David  Douglas,  of  Edinbiirgh. 
It  has  been  7ny  privilege  to  make  various  toiirs  of 
the  British  islands,  since  those  of  1877  and  1882, 
recorded  Jiere ;  and  my  later  books,  Gray  Days  and 
Gold,  and  Old  Shrines  and  Ivy,  should  be  read  in 
association  with  this  one,  by  those  persons  ivho  care 
for  a  zvider  glimpse  of  the  same  delightful  field,  in 
the  same  companionsJiip,  and  especially  by  those  zuho 
like  to  follozv  the  record  of  exploration  and  cJiange  in 
Shakespeare'' s  home.  As  to  the  question  of  accuracy,  — • 
ajid  indeed,  as  to  all  other  questions,  —  //  is  my  zuish 
that  this  book  may  be  Judged  by  the  text  of  the  present 
edition,  zvhich  is  the  latest  and  the  best. 

W.   JV. 
June  6,  1893. 


Beautiful  and  storied  scenes  that  have  soothed  and 
elevated  the  mind  naturally  inspire  a  feeling  of  gratitude. 
Prornpted  by  that  feeling  the  present  a?tthor  has  zvritten 
this  recoi^d  of  his  rambles  in  England.     It  was  his  zvish, 
in  dwelling  npon   the  rural  loveliness  and  the  literary 
and  Jiistorical  associations  of  that  deligJitful  realm,   to 
afford  sympathetic  guidance  and  useful  suggestion  to  other 
American  travellers  zvho,  like  himself  might  be  attracted 
to  roam  among  the  shrines  of  the  mother  land.      There 
is  no  pursuit  more  fascinating  or  in  a  high  intellectual 
sense  more  remujierative ;    since  it  serves  to  define  and 
regulate  knowledge,  to  correct  misapprehensions  of  fact,  to 
broaden  the  mental  vision,  to  ripen  and  refine  the  judg- 


4  PREFACE 

nient  and  tJie  taste,  and  to  fill  the  memory  witJi  ennobling 
recollections.  These  papers  commemorate  two  visits  to 
England,  the  first  made  in  1877,  tJie  second  in  1882; 
they  occasionally  touch  upon  the  same  place  or  scene  as 
observed  at  difi'eroit  times  ;  and  especially  they  describe 
tivo  distinct  journeys,  separated  by  an  ijiterval  of  five 
years,  through  the  region  associated  zvith  the  great  name 
of  Shakespeare.  Repetitions  of  the  same  referettce,  whicJi 
now  ajid  then  occur,  zoere  found  unavoidable  by  the 
ivriter,  but  it  is  Jioped  that  they  zvill  not  be  found  tedious 
by  the  reader.  Those  zvho  zvalk  tzvice  in  the  sajue  patJi- 
ivays  should  be  pleased,  and  not  pained,  to  find  the  same 
wild-fiozvers  grozving  beside  them.  The  first  Ainerican 
edition  of  this  zvork  consisted  of  tzvo  volumes,  published 
in  1879,  1 88 1,  ajid  1884,  called  The  Trip  to  England 
and  English  Rambles.  The  former  book  zvas  einbel- 
lisJied  with  poetic  illustratiojis  by  Joseph  Jefferson,  the 
famous  conicdian,  my  life-long  friend.  The  paper  on 
Shakespeare's  Home,  —  zvritten  to  record  for  Ameri- 
can 7'eaders  the  dedication  of  the  Shakespeare  Memorial 
at  Stratford, — zvas  first  printed  in  Harper's  Magazine, 
in  May  1879.  zuith  delicate  illustrative  pictiires  from 
the  graceful  pencil  of  Edzvin  Abbey.  This  compen- 
dium of  the  Trip  and  the  Rambles,  zuith  the  title  of 
Shakespeare's  England,  zvas  first  published  by  David 
Douglas  of  Edinburgh.  That  title  zoas  chosen  for  the 
reason  that  the  book  relates  largely  to  WarzuicksJiire  and 
because  it  depicts  not  so  much  the  England  of  fact  as  the 


PREFACE  5 

England  created  and  halloived  by  tJie  spirit  of  Jier  poetry, 
of  zvJiich  Shakespeare  is  the  soul.  Several  months  after 
the  publication  of  Shakespeare's  England  the  writer 
zvas  told  of  a  zvork,  published  many  years  ago,  hearing  a 
similar  title,  tJiougJi  relating  to  a  different  theme  —  tJie 
physical  state  of  England  in  Shakespeare' s  time.  He 
had  never  heard  of  it  and  has  never  seen  it.  The  text 
for  the  present  reprint  has  been  carefully  revised.  To 
his  British  readers  the  author  ivould  say  that  it  is  neither 
from  lack  of  sympathy  with  the  happiness  around  him 
nor  from  lack  of  fait Ji  in  the  future  of  his  country  that 
his  writings  have  drifted  tozvard  the  pathos  in  human 
experience  and  toivard  the  hallowing  associations  of  an 
old  historic  land.  Temperament  is  the  explanation  of 
style :  and  he  has  ivritten  thus  of  England  beca?ise  she 
has  filled  his  mind  ivitJi  beauty  and  his  heart  with 
mingled  joy  and  sadness:  and  surely  some  memory  of 
her  venerable  ruins,  her  ancient  shrines,  her  rustic  glens, 
Jier  gleaming  rivers,  and  her  fioiver-spangled  meadows 
ivill  mingle  ivith  the  last  thoughts  that  glimmer  tJirougJi 
his  brain,  when  the  shadozvs  of  the  eternal  nigJit  are 
falling  and  the  ramble  of  life  is  done. 

W.   IV. 
1892, 


CONTENTS 


Preface  to  Illustrated  Edition 

Old  Preface  .      .      .      , 

CHAPTER   I. 
The  Voyage      .  ,  .  , 

CHAPTER   n. 

The  Beauty  of  England 

CHAPTER   III. 
Great  Historic  Places 


Rambles  in  London 


A  Visit  to  Windsor 


CHAPTER    IV. 


CHAPTER   V. 


CHAPTER    VI. 
The  Palace  of  Westminster  . 

CHAPTER   VII. 
Warwick  and  Kenilworth 

CHAPTER   VIII. 
First  View  of  Stratford-upon-Avon  . 

CHAPTER    IX. 

London  Nooks  and  Corners     . 

7 


PAGE 

3 
5 

15 

22 

32 

38 
51 


71 


78 


90 


8  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER   X. 
Relics  of  Lord  Byron  .  .  .  .98 

CHAPTER   XI. 
Westminster  Abbey      .....       104 

CHAPTER  Xn. 
Shakespeare's  Home     .  .  .  .  .118 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Up  to  London  .  .  .  .  •  .167 

CHAPTER   XIV. 
Old  Churches  of  London         .  .  .  .176 

CHAPTER   XV. 
Literary  Shrines  of  London  .  .  •  .186 

CHAPTER   XVI. 
A  Haunt  of  Edmund  Kean         .  .  .  -195 

CHAPTER   XVII. 
Stoke-Pogis  and  Thomas  Gray  .  .  •      200 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 
At  the  Grave  of  Coleridge   ....      208 

CHAPTER   XIX. 
On  Barnet  Battle-field  .  .  .  .215 

CHAPTER   XX. 

A  Glimpse  of  Canterbury        .  .  .  .221 

CHAPTER   XXI. 
The  Shrines  of  Warwickshire  .  .  •      230 

CHAPTER   XXII. 
A  Borrower  of  the  Night      .  ,  ,  .      244 


6 


Portrait  of  William  Winter —  from  a 

cra> 

on  by  Arthur  Jule  Good- 

man    ...... 

Frontispiece 

The  Anchor  Inn 

.        19 

Old  House  at  Ikidport 

20 

Restoration  House,  Rochester    . 

25 

Charing  Cross    .... 

27 

Kensington  Palace     . 

29 

The  Tower  of  London 

acing 

34 

Old  Water  Gate          .... 

37 

Approach  to  Cheshire  Cheese     . 

39 

St.  Mary-le-Strand 

41 

Temple  Church 

43 

dower's  Monument    . 

46 

Andrews's  Monument 

48 

Old  Tabard  Inn,  Southwark 

50 

Windsor  Castle 

52 

St.  George's  Chapel,  Windsor  Castle 

55 

Windsor  Forest  and  Park  . 

57 

The  Curfew  Tower     . 

59 

The  Sign  of  the  Swan 

61 

Westminster  Hall 

63 

The  Mace           .... 

64 

Greenwich  Hospital  . 

facing       68 

Queen  Elizabeth's  Cradle  . 

70 

10  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Warwick  Castle  ........         facing       72 

Old  Inn     ............       75 

Washington  Irving's  Farloui  .....         facing       76 

From  the  Warwick  Shield  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         -77 

Holy  Trinity  Church,  Stratford 79 

The  Inglenook  ...........       82 

Approach  to  Shottery         .........       84 

Distant  View  of  Stratford  .........       89 

Whitehall  Gateway facing       92 

Lambeth  Palace         ........         facing       94 

Dulwich  College facing       96 

The  Crown  Inn,  Dulwich  .........       97 

Oriel  Window    ...........     103 

From  the  Triforium,  Westminster  Abbey    .         .         .         .         .         .105 

Chapel  of  Henry  VII.         .........     107 

Chapel  of  Edward  the  Confessor        .         .         .         .         .         .         .110 

The  Poets'  Corner      .         .         .  .         .         .         .         .         .112 

The  North  Ambulatory 114 

The  Spaniards,  Hampstead 116 

The  Dome  of  St.  Paul's 117 

The  Grange        .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         •         .         •     119 

Shakespeare's  Birthplace 122 

Anne  Hathaway's  Cottage 139 

Charlecote  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         -143 

Meadow  Walk  by  the  Avon 146 

Antique  Font 160 

Monument 162 

Gable  Window 166 

Peveril  Peak 168 

St.  Paul's,  from  Maiden  Lane 170 

The  Charter-house 173 

St.  Giles',  Cripplegate         .......        facing     180 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


11 


Sir  John  Crosby's  Monument 

.     182 

Gresham's  Monument 

■         .         .     183 

Goldsmith's  House     .... 

.     184 

A  Bit  from  Clare  Court 

.     188 

Fleet  Street  in  1780  . 

.     191 

Gray's  Inn  Square      .... 

•     193 

Stoke-Pogis  Church   .... 

.     202 

Old  Church 

.     207 

The  White  Hart         .... 

.     212 

Column  on  Barnet  Battle-field    . 

.     218 

Farm-house 

.     220 

Falstaff  Inn  and  West  Gate,  Canterbury 

.     222 

Butchery  Lane,  Canterbury 

.     224 

Flying-horse  Inn,  Canterbury     . 

.     227 

Canterbury  Cathedral 

facing     228 

Stratford-upon-Avon 

•     231 

Stratford  Church         .... 

facing     232 

Washington  Irving's  Chair 

•     237 

The  Stratford  Memorial 

facing     240 

Mary  Arden's  Cottage 

.     242 

Church  of  St.  Martin 

•     245 

Westminster  Abbey 

.     249 

Middle  Temple  Lane          .         .         .         . 

•     251 

This  royal  throne  of  kings,  this  sceptred  isle. 

This  earth  of  majesty,  this  seat  of  Mars, 

This  other  Eden,  detni-paradise. 

This  fortress  built  by  iVatnre  for  herself  .    .    . 

This  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea,  .  .  . 

This  blessed  plot,  this  earth,  this  realm,  this  England, 

This  land  of  such  dear  souls,  this  dear,  dear  land. 


Dear  for  her  reputation  through  the  "vorld ! 


Shakespeare. 


All  that  I  saiu  returns  upon  my  7>iew  ; 
All  that  I  heard  comes  back  upon  my  ear ; 
All  that  I  felt  this  moment  doth  renezu. 

Fair  land !    by  Time's  parental  love  made  free. 
By  Social  Order'' s  watchful  arms  embraced. 
With  unexampled  union  meet  in  thee. 
For  eye  and  mind,  the  present  and  the  past ; 
With  golden  prospect  for  futurity. 
If  that  be  reverenced  which  ought  to  last. 

Wordsworth. 
13 


SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND 


CHAPTER    I 


THE    VOYAGE 


1887 

HE  coast-line  recedes  and  disappears,  and 
night  comes  down  upon  the  ocean.  Into 
what  dangers  will  the  great  ship  plunge  ? 
Through  what  mysterious  waste  of  waters 
will  she  make  her  viewless  path  ?  The 
black  waves  roll  up  around  her.  The  strong  blast  fills 
her  sails  and  whistles  through  her  creaking  cordage. 
Overhead  the  stars  shine  dimly  amid  the  driving  clouds. 
Mist  and  gloom  close  in  the  dubious  prospect,  and  a 
strange  sadness  settles  upon  the  heart  of  the  voyager  — 
who  has  left  his  home  behind,  and  who  now  seeks,  for 
the  first  time,  the  land,  the  homes,  and  the  manners  of 
the  stranger.  Thoughts  and  images  of  the  past  crowd 
thick  upon  his  remembrance.  The  faces  of  absent 
friends  rise  before  him,  whom,  perhaps,  he  is  destined 
nevermore  to  behold.     He  sees  their  smiles;  he  hears 

15 


16  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

their  voices ;  he  fancies  them  by  familiar  hearth-stones, 
in  the  Hght  of  the  evening  lamps.  They  are  very 
far  away  now ;  and  already  it  seems  months  instead  of 
hours  since  the  parting  moment.  Vain  now  the  pang 
of  regret  for  misunderstandings,  unkindness,  neglect ; 
for  golden  moments  slighted  and  gentle  courtesies  left 
undone.  He  is  alone  upon  the  wild  sea  —  all  the  more 
alone  because  surrounded  with  new  faces  of  unknown 
companions  —  and  the  best  he  can  do  is  to  seek  his 
lonely  pillow  and  lie  down  with  a  prayer  in  his  heart 
and  on  his  lips.  Never  before  did  he  so  clearly  know 
—  never  again  will  he  so  deeply  feel  —  the  uncertainty 
of  human  life  and  the  weakness  of  human  nature.  Yet, 
as  he  notes  the  rush  and  throb  of  the  vast  ship  and  the 
noise  of  the  breaking  waves  around  her,  and  thinks  of 
the  mighty  deep  beneath,  and  the  broad  and  melancholy 
expanse  that  stretches  away  on  every  side,  he  cannot 
miss  the  impression  —  grand,  noble,  and  thrilling  —  of 
human  courage,  skill,  and  power.  For  this  ship  is  the 
centre  of  a  splendid  conflict.  Man  and  the  elements 
are  here  at  war ;  and  man  makes  conquest  of  the  ele- 
ments by  using  them  as  weapons  against  themselves. 
Strong  and  brilliant,  the  head-light  streams  over  the 
boiling  surges.  Lanterns  gleam  in  the  tops.  Dark 
figures  keep  watch  upon  the  prow.  The  officer  of  the 
night  is  at  his  post  upon  the  bridge.  Let  danger 
threaten  howsoever  it  may,  it  cannot  come  unawares ; 
it  cannot  subdue,  without  a  tremendous  struggle,  the 
brave  minds  and  hardy  bodies  that  are  here  arrayed  to 
meet  it.  With  this  thought,  perhaps,  the  weary  voyager 
sinks  to  sleep  ;  and  this  is  his  first  night  at  sea. 

There  is  no  tediousness  of  solitude  to  him  who  has 


I  THE   VOYAGE  17 

within  himself  resources  of  thought  and  dream,  the 
pleasures  and  pains  of  memory,  the  bliss  and  the  torture 
of  imagination.  It  is  best  to  have  few  acquaintances 
—  or  none  —  on  shipboard.  Human  companionship, 
at  some  times,  and  this  is  one  of  them,  distracts  by  its 
pettiness.  The  voyager  should  yield  himself  to  nature 
now,  and  meet  his  own  soul  face  to  face.  The  routine 
of  everyday  life  is  commonplace  enough,  equally  upon 
sea  and  land.  But  the  ocean  is  a  continual  pageant, 
filling  and  soothing  the  mind  with  unspeakable  peace. 
Never,  in  even  the  grandest  words  of  poetry,  was  the 
grandeur  of  the  sea  expressed.  Its  vastness,  its  free- 
dom, its  joy,  and  its  beauty  overwhelm  the  mind.  All 
things  else  seem  puny  and  momentary  beside  the  life 
that  this  immense  creation  unfolds  and  inspires.  Some- 
times it  shines  in  the  sun,  a  wilderness  of  shimmering 
silver.  Sometimes  its  long  waves  are  black,  smooth, 
glittering,  and  dangerous.  Sometimes  it  seems  instinct 
with  a  superb  wrath,  and  its  huge  masses  rise,  and  clash 
together,  and  break  into  crests  of  foam.  Sometimes  it 
is  gray  and  quiet,  as  if  in  a  sullen  sleep.  Sometimes 
the  white  mist  broods  upon  it  and  deepens  the  sense  of 
awful  mystery  by  which  it  is  forever  enwrapped.  At 
night  its  surging  billows  are  furrowed  with  long  streaks 
of  phosphorescent  fire ;  or,  it  may  be,  the  waves  roll 
gently,  under  the  soft  light  of  stars  ;  or  all  the  waste 
is  dim,  save  where,  beneath  the  moon,  a  glorious  path- 
way, broadening  out  to  the  far  horizon,  allures  and 
points  to  heaven.  One  of  the  most  exquisite  delights 
of  the  voyage,  whether  by  day  or  night,  is  to  lie  upon 
the  deck  in  some  secluded  spot,  and  look  up  at  the  tall, 
tapering  spars  as  they  sway  with  the  motion    of   the 


IS  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

ship,  while  over  them  the  white  clouds  float,  in  ever- 
changing  shapes,  or  the  starry  constellations  drift,  in 
their  eternal  march.  No  need  now  of  books,  or  news- 
papers, or  talk !  The  eyes  are  fed  by  every  object 
they  behold.  The  great  ship,  with  all  her  white  wings 
spread,  careening  like  a  tiny  sail-boat,  dips  and  rises, 
with  sinuous,  stately  grace.  The  clank  of  her  engines 
—  fit  type  of  steadfast  industry  and  purpose  —  goes 
steadily  on.  The  song  of  the  sailors  — "  Give  me 
some  time  to  blow  the  man  down" — rises  in  cheery 
melody,  full  of  audacious,  light-hearted  thoughtlessness, 
and  strangely  tinged  with  the  romance  of  the  sea.  Far 
out  toward  the  horizon  many  whales  come  sporting  and 
spouting  along.  At  once,  out  of  the  distant  bank  of 
cloud  and  mist,  a  little  vessel  springs  into  view,  and 
with  convulsive  movement  —  tilting  up  and  down  like 
the  miniature  barque  upon  an  old  Dutch  clock  —  dances 
across  the  vista  and  vanishes  into  space.  Soon  a  tem- 
pest bursts  upon  the  calm ;  and  then,  safe-housed  from 
the  fierce  blast  and  blinding  rain,  the  voyager  exults 
over  the  stern  battle  of  winds  and  waters  and  the  stal- 
wart, undaunted  strength  with  which  his  ship  bears 
down  the  furious  floods  and  stems  the  gale.  By  and 
by  a  quiet  hour  is  given,  when,  met  together  with  the 
companions  of  his  journey,  he  stands  in  the  hushed 
cabin  and  hears  the  voice  of  prayer  and  the  hymn  of 
praise,  and,  in  the  pauses,  a  gentle  ripple  of  waves 
against  the  ship,  which  now  rocks  lazily  upon  the  sunny 
deep ;  and,  ever  and  anon,  as  she  dips,  he  can  discern 
through  her  open  ports  the  shining  sea  and  the  wheel- 
ing and  circling  gulls  that  have  come  out  to  welcome 
her  to  the  shores  of  the  old  world. 


THE   VOYAGE 


19 


The  present  writer,  when  first  he  saw  the  distant  and 
dim  coast  of  Britain,  felt,  with  a  sense  of  forlorn  lone- 
liness that  he  was  a  stranger;  but  when  last  he  saw 
that  coast  he  beheld  it  through  a  mist  of  tears  and  knew 
that  he  had  parted  from  many  cherished  friends,  from 
many  of  the  gentlest  men  and  women  upon  the  earth, 
and  from  a  land  henceforth  as  dear  to  him  as  his  own. 
England  is  a  country  which  to  see  is  to  love.  As  you 
draw  near  to  her  shores  you  are  pleased  at  once  with 
the  air  of  careless  finish 
and  negligent  grace  that 
everywhere  overhangs  the 
prospect.  The  grim,  wind- 
beaten  hills  of  Ireland  have 
first  been  passed  —  hills 
crowned,  here  and  there, 
with  dark,  fierce  towers 
that  look  like  strongholds 
of  ancient  bandit  chiefs, 
and  cleft  by  dim  valleys 
that  seem  to  promise  end- 
less mystery  and  romance, 
hid  in  their  sombre  depths. 
Passed  also  is  white 
Queenstown,  with  its  lovely 
little  bay,  its  circle  of  green 
hillsides,  and  its  valiant  fort;  and  picturesque  Fastnet, 
with  its  gaily  painted  tower,  has  long  been  left  behind. 
It  is  off  the  noble  crags  of  Holyhead  that  the  voyager 
first  observes  with  what  a  deft  skill  the  hand  of  art  has 
here  moulded  nature's  luxuriance  into  forms  of  seeming 
chance-born  beauty ;  and  from  that  hour,  wherever  in 


The  Anchor  Inn. 


20 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


rural  England  the  footsteps  of  the  pilgrim  may  roam, 
he  will  behold  nothing  but  gentle  rustic  adornment, 
that  has  grown  with  the  grass  and  the  roses  —  greener 
grass  and  redder  roses  than  ever  we  see  in  our  western 
world!  In  the  English  nature  a  love  of  the  beautiful 
is  spontaneous,  and  the  operation  of  it  is  as  fluent 
as  the  blowing  of  the  summer  wind.  Portions  of 
English  cities,  indeed,  are  hard  and  harsh  and  coarse 
enough  to  suit  the  most  utilitarian  taste ;  yet  even  in 
those  regions  of  dreary  monotony  the  national  love  of 

flowers  will    find   ex- 


xr 


/^ 


j3^      pictorial, 
stranger 


pression,  and  the  peo- 
ple, without  being 
aware  of  it,  will,  in 
many  odd  little  ways, 
beautify  their  homes 
and  make  their  sur- 
roundings 
at  least  to 
eyes.  There  is  a  tone 
of  rest  and  home- 
like comfort  even  in 
murky  Liverpool;  and 
great  magnificence  is 
there  —  as  well  of 
architecture  and  opulent  living  as  of  enterprise  and 
action.  "Towered  cities"  and  "the  busy  hum  of  men," 
however,  are  soon  left  behind  by  the  wise  traveller  in 
England.  A  time  w^ill  come  for  those ;  but  in  his  first 
sojourn  there  he  soon  discovers  the  two  things  that  are 
utterly  to  absorb  him  —  which  cannot  disappoint  —  and 
which  are  the  fulfilment  of  all  his  dreams.    These  things 


Old  house  at  Bridport. 


I  THE   VOYAGE  21 

are —  the  rustic  loveliness  of  the  land  and  the  charm  of 
its  always  vital  and  splendid  antiquity.  The  green  lanes, 
the  thatched  cottages,  the  meadows  glorious  with  wild- 
flowers,  the  little  churches  covered  with  dark-green  ivy, 
the  Tudor  gables  festooned  with  roses,  the  devious  foot- 
paths that  wind  across  wild  heaths  and  long  and  lone- 
some fields,  the  narrow,  shining  rivers,  brimful  to  their 
banks  and  crossed  here  and  there  with  gray,  moss-grown 
bridges,  the  stately  elms  whose  low-hanging  branches 
droop  over  a  turf  of  emerald  velvet,  the  gnarled  beech- 
trees  "that  wreathe  their  old,  fantastic  roots  so  high," 
the  rooks  that  caw  and  circle  in  the  air,  the  sweet  winds 
that  blow  from  fragrant  woods,  the  sheep  and  the  deer 
that  rest  in  shady  places,  the  pretty  children  who  cluster 
round  the  porches  of  their  cleanly,  cosy  homes,  and  peep 
at  the  wayfarer  as  he  passes,  the  numerous  and  often 
brilliant  birds  that  at  times  fill  the  air  with  music,  the 
brief,  light,  pleasant  rains  that  ever  and  anon  refresh 
the  landscape  —  these  are  some  of  the  everyday  joys  of 
rural  England ;  and  these  are  wrapped  in  a  climate  that 
makes  life  one  serene  ecstasy.  Meantime,  in  rich  valleys 
or  on  verdant  slopes,  a  thousand  old  castles  and  monas- 
teries, ruined  or  half  in  ruins,  allure  the  pilgrim's  gaze, 
inspire  his  imagination,  arouse  his  memory,  and  fill  his 
mind.  The  best  romance  of  the  past  and  the  best 
reality  of  the  present  are  his  banquet  now;  and  nothing 
is  wanting  to  the  perfection  of  the  feast.  I  thought 
that  life  could  have  but  few  moments  of  content  in  store 
for  me  like  the  moment  —  never  to  be  forgotten !  — when, 
in  the  heart  of  London,  on  a  perfect  June  day,  I  lay 
upon  the  grass  in  the  old  Green  Park,  and,  for  the  first 
time,  looked  up  to  the  towers  of  Westminster  Abbey. 


CHAPTER    II 


THE    BEAUTY    OF    ENGLAND 


is  not  strange  that  Englishmen  should 
be  —  as  certainly  .they  are  —  passionate 
lovers  of  their  country  ;  for  their  country 
is,  almost  beyond  parallel,  peaceful,  gen- 
tle, and  beautiful.  Even  in  vast  London, 
where  practical  life  asserts  itself  with  such  prodigious 
force,  the  stranger  is  impressed,  in  every  direction,  with 
a  sentiment  of  repose  and  peace.  This  sentiment  seems 
to  proceed  in  part  from  the  antiquity  of  the  social 
system  here  established,  and  in  part  from  the  affection- 
ate nature  of  the  English  people.  Here  are  finished 
towns,  rural  regions  thoroughly  cultivated  and  exqui- 
sitely adorned ;  ancient  architecture,  crumbling  in  slow 
decay ;  and  a  soil  so  rich  and  pure  that  even  in  its  idlest 
mood  it  lights  itself  up  with  flowers,  just  as  the  face  of 
a  sleeping  child  lights  itself  up  with  smiles.  Here, 
also,  are  soft  and  kindly  manners,  settled  principles, 
good  laws,  wise  customs  —  wise,  because  rooted  in  the 
universal  attributes  of  human  nature  ;  and,  above  all, 
here  is  the  practice  of  trying  to  live  in  a  happy  condi- 


22 


CHAP.  11  THE   BEAUTY   OF   ENGLAND  23 

tion  instead  of  trying  to  make  a  noise  about  it.  Here, 
accordingly,  life  is  soothed  and  hallowed  with  the 
comfortable,  genial,  loving  spirit  of  home.  It  would, 
doubtless,  be  easily  possible  to  come  into  contact  here 
with  absurd  forms  and  pernicious  abuses,  to  observe 
absurd  individuals,  and  to  discover  veins  of  sordid 
selfishness  and  of  evil  and  sorrow.  But  the  things  that 
first  and  most  deeply  impress  the  observer  of  England 
and  English  society  are  their  potential,  manifold,  and 
abundant  sources  of  beauty,  refinement,  and  peace. 
There  are,  of  course,  grumblers.  Mention  has  been 
made  of  a  person  who,  even  in  heaven,  would  complain 
that  his  cloud  was  damp  and  his  halo  a  misfit.  We 
cannot  have  perfection  ;  but  the  man  who  could  not  be 
happy  in  England  —  in  so  far,  at  least,  as  happiness 
depends  upon  external  objects  and  influences  —  could 
not  reasonably  expect  to  be  happy  anywhere. 

Summer  heat  is  perceptible  for  an  hour  or  two  each 
day,  but  it  causes  no  discomfort.  Fog  has  refrained ; 
though  it  is  understood  to  be  lurking  in  the  Irish  sea 
and  the  English  channel,  and  waiting  for  November, 
when  it  will  drift  into  town  and  grime  all  the  new  paint 
on  the  London  houses.  Meantime,  the  sky  is  softly 
blue  and  full  of  magnificent  bronze  clouds ;  the  air  is 
cool,  and  in  the  environs  of  the  city  is  fragrant  with  the 
scent  of  new-mown  hay ;  and  the  grass  and  trees  in  the 
parks —  those  copious  and  splendid  lungs  of  London  — 
are  green,  dewy,  sweet,  and  beautiful.  Persons  "  to  the 
manner  born"  were  lately  calling  the  season  "back- 
ward," and  they  went  so  far  as  to  grumble  at  the  haw- 
thorne,  as  being  less  brilliant  than  in  former  seasons. 
But,  in  fact,  to  the  unfamiliar  sense,  this  tree  of  odorous 


24  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

coral  has  been  delicious.  We  have  nothing  comparable 
with  it  in  northern  America,  unless,  perhaps,  it  be  the 
elder,  of  our  wild  woods  ;  and  even  that,  with  all  its 
fragrance,  lacks  equal  charm  of  colour.  They  use  the 
hawthorne,  or  some  kindred  shrub,  for  hedges  in  this 
country,  and  hence  their  fields  are  seldom  disfigured 
with  fences.  As  you  ride  through  the  land  you  see 
miles  and  miles  of  meadow  traversed  by  these  green 
and  blooming  hedgerows,  which  give  the  country  a 
charm  quite  incommunicable  in  words.  The  green  of 
the  foliage  —  enriched  by  an  uncommonly  humid  air 
and  burnished  by  the  sun  —  is  in  perfection,  while  the 
flowers  bloom  in  such  abundance  that  the  whole  realm 
is  one  glowing  pageant.  I  saw  near  Oxford,  on  the 
crest  of  a  hill,  a  single  ray  of  at  least  a  thousand  feet  of 
scarlet  poppies.  Imagine  that  glorious  dash  of  colour 
in  a  green  landscape  lit  by  the  afternoon  sun  !  Nobody 
could  help  loving  a  land  that  woos  him  with  such 
beauty. 

English  flowers  are  exceptional  for  substance  and 
pomp.  The  roses,  in  particular — though  some  of  them, 
it  should  be  said,  are  of  French  breeds  —  surpass  all 
others.  It  may  seem  an  extravagance  to  say,  but  it  is 
certainly  true,  that  these  rich,  firm,  brilliant  flowers  af- 
fect you  like  creatures  of  flesh  and  blood.  They  are,  in 
this  respect,  only  to  be  described  as  like  nothing  in  the 
world  so  much  as  the  bright  lips  and  blushing  cheeks 
of  the  handsome  English  women  who  walk  among  them 
and  vie  with  them  in  health  and  loveliness.  It  is  easy 
to  perceive  the  source  of  those  elements  of  warmth  and 
sumptuousness  that  are  so  conspicuous  in  the  results  of 
English  taste.     It  is  a  land  of   flowers.     Even  in  the 


II 


THE   BEAUTY   OF   ENGLAND 


25 


busiest  parts  of  London  the  people  decorate  their  houses 
with  them,  and  set  the  sombre,  fog-grimed  fronts  ablaze 
with  scarlet  and  gold.  These  are  the  prevalent  colours  — 
radically  so,  for  they  have  become  national  ^'.   . 

—  and,  when  placed  against  the  black  tint 
with    which    this    climate    stains    the 
buildings,  they  have  the  advan- 

Ml- 

A 


Restoration  House,  Rochester. 


tage  of  a  vivid  contrast  that  much  augments  their  splen- 
dour. All  London  wears  crape,  variegated  with  a  tra- 
cery of  white,  like  lace  upon  a  pall.  In  some  instances 
the  effect  is  splendidly  pompous.  There  cannot  be  a 
grander  artificial  object  in  the  world  than  the  front  of 


26  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

St.  Paul's  cathedral,  which  is  especially  notable  for  this 
mysterious  blending  of  light  and  shade.  It  is  to  be 
deplored  that  a  climate  which  can  thus  beautify  should 
also  destroy ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  stones 
of  England  are  steadily  defaced  by  the  action  of  the 
damp  atmosphere.  Already  the  delicate  carvings  on 
the  palace  of  Westminster  are  beginning  to  crumble. 
And  yet,  if  one  might  judge  the  climate  by  this  glitter- 
ing July,  England  is  a  land  of  sunshine  as  well  as  of 
flowers.  Light  comes  before  three  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  it  lasts,  through  a  dreamy  and  lovely  gloaming, 
till  nearly  ten  o'clock  at  night.  The  morning  sky  is 
usually  light  blue,  dappled  with  slate-coloured  clouds. 
A  few  large  stars  are  visible  then,  lingering  to  outface 
the  dawn.  Cool  winds  whisper,  and  presently  they 
rouse  the  great,  sleepy,  old  elms ;  and  then  the  rooks  — 
which  are  the  low  comedians  of  the  air  in  this  region 
—  begin  to  grumble ;  and  then  the  sun  leaps  above  the 
horizon,  and  we  sweep  into  a  day  of  golden,  breezy 
cheerfulness  and  comfort,  the  like  of  which  is  rarely 
or  never  known  in  northern  America,  between  June 
and  October.  Sometimes  the  whole  twenty-four  hours 
have  drifted  past,  as  if  in  a  dream  of  light,  and  fra- 
grance, and  music.  In  a  recent  moonlight  time  there 
was  scarce  any  darkness  at  all ;  and  more  than  once  I 
have  lain  awake  all  night,  within  a  few  miles  of  Charing 
Cross,  listening  to  a  twitter  of  birds  that  is  like  the  lapse 
and  fall  of  silver  water.  It  used  to  be  difficult  to  under- 
stand why  the  London  season  should  begin  in  May  and 
last  through  most  of  the  summer ;  it  is  not  difficult  to 
understand  the  custom  now. 

The  elements  of  discontent  and  disturbance  which  are 


II 


TIIK    HKAUTV   OF    ENGLAND 


27 


visible  in  English  society  are  found,  upon  close  examina- 
tion, to  be  merely  superficial.  Underneath  them  there 
abides  a  sturdy,  immutable,  inborn  love  of  England. 
Those  croakings,  grumblings,  and  bickerings  do  but 
denote  the  process  by  which 
the  body  politic  frees  itself 
from  the  headaches  and 
fevers  that  embarrass  the 
national  health.  The  Eng- 
lishman and  his  country  are 
one;  and  when  the  English- 
man complains  against  his 
country  it  is  not  because  he 
believes  that  either  there  is 
or  can  be  a  better  country 
elsewhere,  but  because  his 
instinct  of  justice  and  order 
makes  him  crave  perfection 
in  his  own.  Institutions  and 
principles  are,  with  him,  by 
nature,  paramount  to  indi- 
viduals ;  and  individuals  only 
possess  importance  —  and  that  conditional  on  abiding 
rectitude  —  who  are  their  representatives.  Everything 
is  done  in  England  to  promote  the  permanence  and 
beauty  of  the  home;  and  the  permanence  and  beauty 
of  the  home,  by  a  natural  reaction,  augment  in  the 
English  people  solidity  of  character  and  peace  of  life. 
They  do  not  dwell  in  a  perpetual  fret  and  fume  as 
to  the  acts,  thoughts,  and  words  of  other  nations  :  for 
the  English  there  is  absolutely  no  public  opinion  outside 
of  their  own  land  :  they  do  not  live  for  the  sake  of  work- 


Charins:  Cross. 


28  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  n 

ing,  but  they  work  for  the  sake  of  Hving;  and,  as  the 
necessary  preparations  for  living  have  long  since  been 
completed,  their  country  is  at  rest.  This  is  the  secret  of 
England's  first,  and  continuous,  and  last,  and  all-pervad- 
ing charm  and  power  for  the  stranger  —  the  charm  and 
power  to  soothe. 

The  efficacy  of  endeavouring  to  make  a  country  a 
united,  comfortable,  and  beautiful  home  for  all  its 
inhabitants,  —  binding  every  heart  to  the  land  by  the 
same  tie  that  binds  every  heart  to  the  fireside,  —  is 
something  well  worthy  to  be  considered,  equally  by  the 
practical  statesman  and  the  contemplative  observer. 
That  way,  assuredly,  lie  the  welfare  of  the  human  race 
and  all  the  tranquillity  that  human  nature — warped  as 
it  is  by  evil  —  will  ever  permit  to  this  world.  This 
endeavour  has,  through  long  ages,  been  steadily  pursued 
in  England,  and  one  of  its  results  —  which  is  also  one 
of  its  indications  —  is  the  vast  accumulation  of  what 
may  be  called  home  treasures  in  the  city  of  London. 
The  mere  enumeration  of  them  would  fill  large  volumes. 
The  description  of  them  could  not  be  completed  in  a 
lifetime.  It  was  this  copiousness  of  historic  wealth  and 
poetic  association,  combined  with  the  flavour  of  char- 
acter and  the  sentiment  of  monastic  repose,  that  bound 
Dr.  Johnson  to  Fleet  Street  and  made  Charles  Lamb 
such  an  inveterate  lover  of  the  town.  Except  it  be  to 
correct  a  possible  insular  narrowness  there  can  be  no 
need  that  the  Londoner  should  travel.  Glorious  sights, 
indeed,  await  him,  if  he  journeys  no  further  away  than 
Paris ;  but,  aside  from  ostentation,  luxury,  gaiety,  and 
excitement,  Paris  will  give  him  nothing  that  he  may  not 
find  at  home.     The  great  cathedral  of  Notre  Dame  will 


%iJAim 


30  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

awe  him ;  but  not  more  than  his  own  Westminster 
Abbey.  The  grandeur  and  beauty  of  the  Madeleine 
will  enchant  him ;  but  not  more  than  the  massive 
solemnity  and  stupendous  magnificence  of  St.  Paul's. 
The  embankments  of  the  Seine  will  satisfy  his  taste 
with  their  symmetrical  solidity ;  but  he  will  not  deem 
them  superior  in  any  respect  to  the  embankments  of  the 
Thames.  The  Pantheon,  the  Hotel  des  Invalides,  the 
Luxembourg,  the  Louvre,  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce, 
the  Opera-House,  —  all  these  will  dazzle  and  delight 
his  eyes,  arousing  his  remembrances  of  history  and 
firing  his  imagination  of  great  events  and  persons ;  but 
all  these  will  fail  to  displace  in  his  esteem  the  grand 
Palace  of  Westminster,  so  stately  in  its  simplicity,  so 
strong  in  its  perfect  grace !  He  will  ride  through  the 
exquisite  Park  of  Monceau,  —  one  of  the  loveliest  spots 
in  Paris,  —  and  onward  to  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  with 
its  sumptuous  pomp  of  foliage,  its  romantic  green  vistas, 
its  many  winding  avenues,  its  hillside  hermitage,  its 
cascades,  and  its  aflfluent  lakes  whereon  the  white 
swans  beat  the  water  with  their  joyous  wings  ;  but  still 
his  soul  will  turn,  with  unshaken  love  and  loyal  prefer- 
ence to  the  sweetly  sylvan  solitude  of  the  gardens  of 
Kensington  and  Kew.  He  will  marvel  in  the  museums 
of  the  Louvre,  the  Luxembourg,  and  Cluny ;  and  prob- 
ably he  will  concede  that  of  paintings,  whether  ancient 
or  modern,  the  French  display  is  larger  and  finer  than 
the  English ;  but  he  will  vaunt  the  British  Museum  as 
peerless  throughout  the  world,  and  he  will  still  prize 
his  National  Gallery,  with  its  originals  of  Hogarth, 
Reynolds,  Gainsborough,  and  Turner,  its  spirited,  ten- 
der,   and    dreamy    Murillos,  and   its    dusky   glories    of 


11  THE   BEAUTY   OF   ENGLAND  31 

Rembrandt.  He  will  admire,  at  the  Theatre  Frangais, 
the  photographic  perfection  of  French  acting  ;  but  he 
will  be  apt  to  reflect  that  English  dramatic  art,  if  it 
sometimes  lacks  finish,  often  has  the  effect  of  nature ; 
and  he  will  certainly  perceive  that  the  playhouse  itself 
is  not  superior  to  either  Her  Majesty's  Theatre  or 
Covent  Garden.  He  will  luxuriate  in  the  Champs 
Elysees,  in  the  superb  Boulevards,  in  the  glittering 
pageant  of  precious  jewels  that  blazes  in  the  Rue  de  la 
Paix  and  the  Palais  Royal,  and  in  that  gorgeous  pano- 
rama of  shop-windows  for  which  the  French  capital  is 
unrivalled  and  famous  ;  and  he  will  not  deny  that,  as 
to  brilliancy  of  aspect,  Paris  is  prodigious  and  une- 
qualled —  the  most  radiant  of  cities  —  the  sapphire  in 
the  crown  of  Solomon.  But,  when  all  is  seen,  either 
that  Louis  the  Fourteenth  created  or  Buonaparte 
pillaged, —  when  he  has  taken  his  last  walk  in  the 
gardens  of  the  Tuileries,  and  mused,  at  the  foot  of  the 
statue  of  Caesar,  on  that  Titanic  strife  of  monarchy  and 
democracy  of  which  France  has  seemed  destined  to  be 
the  perpetual  theatre,  —  sated  with  the  glitter  of  showy 
opulence  and  tired  with  the  whirl  of  frivolous  life  he 
will  gladly  and  gratefully  turn  again  to  his  sombre, 
mysterious,  thoughtful,  restful  old  London ;  and,  like 
the  Syrian  captain,  though  in  the  better  spirit  of  truth 
and  right,  declare  that  Abana  and  Pharpar,  rivers  of 
Damascus,  are  better  than  all  the  waters  of  Israel. 


CHAPTER   III 


GREAT    HISTORIC    PLACES 


HERE  is  so  much  to  be  seen  in  London 
that  the  pilgrim  scarcely  knows  where  to 
choose  and  certainly  is  perplexed  by  what 
Dr.  Johnson  called  "  the  multiplicity  of 
agreeable  consciousness."  One  spot  to 
which  I  have  many  times  been  drawn,  and  which  the 
mention  of  Dr.  Johnson  instantly  calls  to  mind,  is  the 
stately  and  solemn  place  in  Westminster  Abbey  where 
that  great  man's  ashes  are  buried.  Side  by  side,  under 
the  pavement  of  the  Abbey,  within  a  few  feet  of  earth, 
sleep  Johnson,  Garrick,  Sheridan,  Henderson,  Dickens, 
Cumberland,  and  Handel.  Garrick's  wife  is  buried  in 
the  same  grave  with  her  husband.  Close  by,  some 
brass  letters  on  a  little  slab  in  the  stone  floor  mark  the 
last  resting-place  of  Thomas  Campbell.  Not  far  off  is 
the  body  of  Macaulay ;  while  many  a  stroller  through 
the  nave  treads  upon  the  gravestone  of  that  astonishing 
old  man  Thomas  Parr,  who  lived  in  the  reigns  of  nine 
princes  (1483-1635),  and  reached  the  great  age  of  152. 
All  parts  of  Westminster  Abbey  impress  the  reverential 

32 


CHAP.  Ill  GREAT   HISTORIC   PLACES  33 

mind.  It  is  an  experience  very  strange  and  full  of  awe 
suddenly  to  find  your  steps  upon  the  sepulchres  of  such 
illustrious  men  as  Burke,  Pitt,  Fox,  and  Grattan  ;  and 
you  come,  with  a  thrill  of  more  than  surprise,  upon 
such  still  fresh  antiquity  as  the  grave  of  Anne  Neville, 
the  daughter  of  Warwick  and  queen  of  Richard  the 
Third.  But  no  single  spot  in  the  great  cathedral  can 
so  enthral  the  imagination  as  that  strip  of  storied  stone 
beneath  which  Garrick,  Johnson,  Sheridan,  Henderson, 
Cumberland,  Dickens,  Macaulay,  and  Handel  sleep, 
side  by  side.  This  writer,  when  lately  he  visited  the 
Abbey,  found  a  chair  upon  the  grave  of  Johnson,  and 
sat  down  there  to  rest  and  muse.  The  letters  on  the 
stone  are  fast  wearing  away  ;  but  the  memory  of  that 
sturdy  champion  of  thought  can  never  perish,  as  long 
as  the  votaries  of  literature  love  their  art  and  honour 
the  valiant  genius  that  battled  —  through  hunger,  toil, 
and  contumely  —  for  its  dignity  and  renown.  It  was 
a  tender  and  right  feeling  that  prompted  the  burial  of 
Johnson  close  beside  Garrick.  They  set  out  together 
to  seek  their  fortune  in  the  great  city.  They  went 
through  privation  and  trial  hand  in  hand.  Each  found 
glory  in  a  different  way ;  and,  although  parted  after- 
ward by  the  currents  of  fame  and  wealth,  they  were 
never  sundered  in  affection.  It  was  fit  they  should  at 
last  find  their  rest  together,  under  the  most  glorious 
roof  that  greets  the  skies  of  England. 

Fortune  gave  me  a  good  first  day  at  the  Tower  o\ 
London.  The  .sky  lowered.  The  air  was  very  cold. 
The  wind  blew  with  angry  gusts.  The  rain  fell,  now 
and  then,  in  a  chill  drizzle.  The  river  was  dark  and 
sullen.     If  the  spirits  of  the  dead  come  back  to  haunt 


34  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

any  place  they  surely  come  back  to  haunt  that  one ; 
and  this  was  a  day  for  their  presence.  One  dark  ghost 
seemed  near,  at  every  step  —  the  ominous  shade  of  the 
lonely  Duke  of  Gloster.  The  little  room  in  which  the 
princes  are  said  to  have  been  murdered,  by  his  com- 
mand, was  shown,  and  the  oratory  where  king  Henry 
the  Sixth  is  supposed  to  have  met  a  violent  death,  and 
the  council  chamber,  in  which  Richard  —  after  listening, 
in  an  ambush  behind  the  arras  —  denounced  the 
^^Tetched  Hastings.  The  latter  place  is  now  used  as  an 
armoury ;  but  the  same  ceiling  covers  it  that  echoed  the 
bitter  invective  of  Gloster  and  the  rude  clamour  of  his 
soldiers,  when  their  frightened  victim  was  plucked  forth 
and  dragged  downstairs,  to  be  beheaded  on  "  a  timber- 
log  "  in  the  court}^ard.  The  Tower  is  a  place  for  such 
deeds,  and  you  almost  wonder  that  they  do  not  happen 
still,  in  its  gloomy  chambers.  The  room  in  which  the 
princes  were  killed  (if  killed  indeed  they  were)  is  par- 
ticularly grisly  in  aspect.  It  is  an  inner  room,  small 
and  dark.  A  barred  window  in  one  of  its  walls  fronts 
a  window  on  the  other  side  of  the  passage  by  which 
you  approach  it.  This  is  but  a  few  feet  from  the  floor, 
and  perhaps  the  murderers  paused  to  look  through  it  as 
they  went  to  their  hellish  work  upon  the  children  of 
king  Edward.  The  entrance  was  indicated  to  a  secret 
passage  by  which  this  apartment  could  be  approached 
from  the  foot  of  the  Tower.  In  one  gloomy  stone 
chamber  the  crown  jewels  are  exhibited,  in  a  large 
glass  case.  One  of  the  royal  relics  is  a  crown  of  velvet 
and  gold  that  was  made  for  poor  Anne  Boleyn.  You 
may  pass  across  the  courtyard  and  pause  on  the  spot 
where  that  miserable  woman  was    beheaded,  and   you 


o 

Q 
2 
O 


o 


Ill  GREAT   HISTORIC   PLACES  35 

may  wahc  thence  over  the  ground  that  her  last  trem- 
bling footsteps  traversed,  to  the  round  tower  in  which, 
at  the  close,  she  lived.  Her  grave  is  in  the  chancel  of 
the  little  antique  church,  close  by.  I  saw  the  cell  of 
Raleigh,  and  that  direful  chamber  which  is  scrawled  all 
over  with  the  names  and  emblems  of  prisoners  who 
therein  suffered  confinement  and  lingering  agony, 
nearly  always  ending  in  death ;  but  I  saw  no  sadder 
place  than  Anne  Boleyn's  tower.  It  seemed  in  the 
strangest  way  eloquent  of  mute  suffering.  It  seemed 
to  exhale  grief  and  to  plead  for  love  and  pity.  Yet  — 
what  woman  ever  had  greater  love  than  was  lavished 
on  her  .-*  And  what  woman  ever  trampled  more  royally 
and  recklessly  upon  human  hearts  .'* 

The  Tower  of  London  is  degraded  by  being  put  to 
commonplace  uses  and  by  being  exhibited  in  a  common- 
place manner.  They  use  the  famous  White  Tower  now 
as  a  store-house  for  arms,  and  it  contains  about  one 
hundred  thousand  guns,  besides  a  vast  collection  of  old 
armour  and  weapons.  The  arrangement  of  the  latter 
was  made  by  J.  R.  Planche,  the  dramatic  author,  — 
famous  as  an  antiquarian  and  a  herald.  [That  learned, 
able,  brilliant,  and  honoured,  gentleman  died,  May  29, 
1880,  aged  84.]  Under  his  tasteful  direction  the  effigies 
and  gear  of  chivalry  are  displayed  in  such  a  way  that 
the  observer  may  trace  the  changes  that  war  fashions 
have  undergone,  through  the  reigns  of  successive 
sovereigns  of  England,  from  the  earliest  period  until 
now.  A  suit  of  mail  worn  by  Henry  the  Eighth  is 
shown,  and  also  a  suit  worn  by  Charles  the  First.  The 
suggestiveness  of  both  figures  is  remarkable.  In  a 
room  on  the  second  floor  of  the  White  Tower  they  keep 


36  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

many  gorgeous  oriental  weapons,  and  they  show  the 
cloak  in  which  General  Wolfe  died,  on  the  Plains  of 
Abraham.  It  is  a  gray  garment,  to  which  the  active 
moth  has  given  a  share  of  his  assiduous  attention.  The 
most  impressive  objects  to  be  seen  there,  however,  are 
the  block  and  axe  that  were  used  in  beheading  the 
Scotch  lords,  Kilmarnock,  Balmerino,  and  Lovat,  after 
the  defeat  of  the  pretender,  in  1746.  The  block  is  of 
ash,  and  there  are  big  and  cruel  dents  upon  it,  showing 
that  it  was  made  for  use  rather  than  ornament.  It  is 
harmless  enough  now,  and  this  writer  was  allowed  to 
place  his  head  upon  it,  in  the  manner  prescribed  for  the 
victims  of  decapitation.  The  door  of  Raleigh's  bed- 
room is  opposite  to  these  baleful  relics,  and  it  is  said 
that  his  History  of  the  World  was  written  in  the  room  in 
which  these  implements  are  now  such  conspicuous 
objects  of  gloom. ^  The  place  is  gloomy  and  cheerless 
beyond  expression,  and  great  must  have  been  the 
fortitude  of  the  man  who  bore,  in  that  grim  solitude,  a 
captivity  of  thirteen  years  —  not  failing  to  improve  it 
by  producing  a  book  so  excellent  for  quaintness,  philos- 
ophy, and  eloquence.  A  "beef-eater,"  arrayed  in  a 
dark  tunic,  trousers  trimmed  wdth  red,  and  a  black 
velvet  hat  adorned  with  bows  of  blue  and  red  ribbon, 
precedes  each  group  of  visitors,  and  drops  information 
and  the  letter  h,  from  point  to  point.  The  centre  of 
what  was  once  the  Tower  green  is  marked  with  a  brass 
plate,  naming  Anne  Boleyn  and  giving  the  date  when 
she  was  there  beheaded.     They  found   her  body  in   an 

1  Many  of  these  relics  have  since  been  disposed  in  a  different  way. — 
Raleigh  was  incarcerated  in  various  parts  of  the  Tower,  in  the  course  of  his 
several  imprisonments. 


Ill 


GREAT    HISTORIC   PLACES 


37 


elm-wood  box,  made  to  hold  arrows,  and  it  now  rests, 
with  the  ashes  of  other  noble  sufferers,  under  the  stones 
of  the  church  of  St.  Peter,  about  fifty  feet  from  the 
place  of  execution.  The  ghost  of  Anne  Boleyn  is 
said  to  haunt  that  part  of  the  Tower  where  she  lived, 
and  it  is  likewise  whispered  that  the  spectre  of  Lady 
Jane  Grey  was  seen,  not  long  ago,  on  the  anniversary 
of  the  day  of  her  execution  [Obiit  February  12,  1554], 
to  glide  out  upon  a  balcony  adjacent  to  the  room  in 
which  she  lodged  during  nearly  eight  months,  at  the 
last  of  her  wasted,  unfortunate,  but  gentle  and  noble 
life.  [That  room  was  in  the  house  of  Thomas  Brydges, 
brother  and  deputy  of  Sir  John  Brydges,  Lieutenant  of 
the  Tower,  and  its  windows  command  an  unobstructed 
view  of  the  Tower  green,  which  was  the  place  of  the 
block.]  It  could  serve  no  good  purpose  to  relate  the 
particulars  of  those  visitations;  but  nobody  doubts  them 
—  while  he  is  in  the  Tower.  It  is  a  place  of  mystery 
and  horror,  notwithstanding  all  that  the  practical  spirit 
of  to-day  has  done  to  make  it  trivial  and  to  cheapen  its 
grim  glories  by  association  with  the  commonplace. 


CHAPTER    IV 


RAMBLES    IN    LONDON 


LL  old  cities  get  rich  in  association,  as 
a  matter  of  course  and  whether  they  will 
or  no ;  but  London,  by  reason  of  its  great 
extent,  as  well  as  its  great  antiquity,  is 
richer  in  association  than  any  modern 
place  on  earth.  The  stranger  scarcely  takes  a  step 
without  encountering  a  new  object  of  interest.  The 
walk  along  the  Strand  and  Fleet  Street,  in  particular, 
is  continually  on  storied  ground.  Old  Temple  Bar  still 
stands  (July  1877),  though  "tottering  to  its  fall,"  and 
marks  the  junction  of  the  two  streets.  The  statues  of 
Charles  the  First  and  Charles  the  Second  on  its  western 
front  would  be  remarkable  anywhere,  as  characteristic 
portraits.  You  stand  beside  that  arch  and  quite  forget 
the  passing  throng,  and  take  no  heed  of  the  tumult 
around,  as  you  think  of  Johnson  and  Boswell  leaning 
against  the  Bar  after  midnight  in  the  far-off  times  and 
waking  the  echoes  of  the  Temple  Garden  with  their 
frolicsome  laughter.  The  Bar  is  carefully  propped 
now,  and  they  will  nurse  its  age  as  long  as  they  can ; 

38 


CHAP.    IV 


RAMBLLS   IN    LONDON 


39 


■fill  ■■ 


but  it  is  an  obstruction  to  travel  —  and  it  must  dis- 
appear. (It  was  removed  in  the  summer  of  1878.) 
They  will  probably  set  it  up,  newly  built,  in  another 
place.  They  have 
left  untouched  a  lit- 
tle piece  of  the  origi- 
nal scaffolding  built 
around  St.  Paul's ; 
and  that  fragment 
of  decaying  wood 
may  still  be  seen, 
high  upon  the  side 
of  the  cathedral. 
The  Rainbow,  the 
Mitre,  the  Cheshire 
Cheese,  Dolly's 
Chop -House,  the 
Cock,  and  the 
Round  Table — tav- 
erns or  public- 
houses  that  were 
frequented  by  the 
old  wits  —  are  still 
extant  (1877).  The 
Cheshire  Cheese  is 
scarcely  changed 
from  what  it  was 
when  Johnson,  Gold- 
smith, and  their  com- 
rades ate  beefsteak  pie  and  drank  porter  there,  and  the 
Doctor  "tossed  and  gored  several  persons,"  as  it  was 
his  cheerful  custom  to  do.     The  benches  in  that  room 


/   . 

Approacli  to  Cheshire   Cheese. 


40  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  iv 

are  narrow,  incommodious,  penitential  ;  mere  ledges 
of  well-worn  wood,  on  which  the  visitor  sits  bolt  up- 
right, in  difficult  perpendicular ;  but  there  is,  probably, 
nothing  on  earth  that  would  induce  the  owner  to  alter 
them  —  and  he  is  right.  The  conservative  principle  in 
the  English  mind,  if  it  has  saved  some  trash,  has  saved 
more  treasure.  At  the  foot  of  Buckingham  Street,  in 
the  Strand,  —  where  was  situated  an  estate  of  George 
Villiers,  first  Duke  of  Buckingham,  assassinated  in 
1628,  whose  tomb  may  be  seen  in  the  chapel  of  Henry 
the  Seventh  in  Westminster  Abbey,  —  still  stands  the 
slowly  crumbling  ruin  of  the  old  Water  Gate,  so  often 
mentioned  as  the  place  where  accused  traitors  were 
embarked  for  the  Tower.  The  river,  in  former  times, 
flowed  up  to  that  gate,  but  the  land  along  the  margin 
of  the  Thames  has  been  redeemed,  and  the  magnificent 
Victoria  and  Albert  embankments  now  border  the  river 
for  a  long  distance  on  both  sides.  The  Water  Gate,  in 
fact,  stands  in  a  little  park  on  the  north  bank  of  the 
Thames.  Not  far  away  is  the  Adelphi  Terrace,  where 
Garrick  lived  and  died  (Obiit  January  20,  1779,  aged 
63),  and  where,  on  October  i,  1822,  his  widow  expired, 
aged  98.  The  house  of  Garrick  is  let  in  "chambers" 
now.  If  you  walk  up  the  Strand  towards  Charing  Cross 
you  presently  come  near  to  the  Church  of  St.  Martin-in- 
the-Fields,  which  is  one  of  the  works  of  James  Gibbs,  a 
pupil  of  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  and  entirely  worthy  of 
the  master's  hand.  The  fogs  have  stained  that  building 
with  such  a  deft  touch  as  shows  the  caprice  of  nature  to 
be  often  better  than  the  best  design  of  art.  Nell  Gwyn's 
name  is  connected  with  St.  Martin.  Her  funeral  oc- 
curred in  that  church,  and  was  pompous,  and  no  less  a 


:tl     '^':^MM 


L\  h 


w/^  ™v-®iP!»i&m.  i"'  •'  ^     P      '*     C  .'111         •»  ^ 


M-tt'%^F 


/        "^  »4'*"»>'<''-l'i""Wt>lli;diV"  '  ',.1' '' :  i' :  »■      ^<n-,™ „ 

7 


-^ 

s 


« 


Temple  Church. 


42  SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND  chap,  iv 

person  than  Tenison  (afterwards  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury) preached  the  funeral  sermon. ^  That  prelate's 
dust  reposes  in  Lambeth  church,  which  can  be  seen, 
across  the  river,  from  this  part  of  Westminster.  If  you 
walk  down  the  Strand,  through  Temple  Bar,  you  pres- 
ently reach  the  Temple ;  and  there  is  no  place  in  Lon- 
don where  the  past  and  the  present  are  so  strangely 
confronted  as  they  are  here.  The  venerable  church,  so 
quaint  with  its  cone-pointed  turrets,  was  sleeping  in  the 
sunshine  when  first  I  saw  it ;  sparrows  were  twittering 
around  its  spires  and  gliding  in  and  out  of  the  crevices 
in  its  ancient  walls ;  while  from  within  a  strain  of  organ 
music,  low  and  sweet,  trembled  forth,  till  the  air  became 
a  benediction  and  every  common  thought  and  feeling 
was  purified  away  from  mind  and  heart.  The  grave 
of  Goldsmith  is  close  to  the  pathway  that  skirts  this 
church,  on  a  terrace  raised  above  the  foundation  of  the 
building  and  above  the  little  graveyard  of  the  Templars 
that  nestles  at  its  base.  As  I  stood  beside  the  resting- 
place  of  that  sweet  poet  it  was  im.possible  not  to  feel 
both  grieved  and  glad :  grieved  at  the  thought  of  all  he 
suffered,  and  of  all  that  the  poetic  nature  must  always 
suffer  before  it  will  utter  its  immortal  music  for  man- 
kind :  glad  that  his  gentle  spirit  found  rest  at  last,  and 
that  time  has  given  him  the  crown  he  would  most  have 
prized  —  the  affection  of  true  hearts.  A  gray  stone, 
coffin-shaped  and  marked  with  a  cross,  —  after  the  fash- 
ion of  the  contiguous  tombs  of  the  Templars,  —  is  im- 
posed upon  his  grave.     One  surface  bears  the  inscrip- 

1  This  was  made  the  occasion  of  a  complaint  against  him,  to  Queen 
Mary,  who  gently  expressed  her  unshaken  confidence  in  his  goodness  and 
truth. 


Si.  Mary-ie-St>and —  The  Strand. 


44  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

tion,  "  Here  lies  Oliver  Goldsmith  "  ;  the  other  presents 
the  dates  of  his  birth  and  death.  (Born  Nov.  lO,  1728  ; 
died  April  4,  1774.)  I  tried  to  call  up  the  scene  of  his 
burial,  when,  around  the  open  grave,  on  that  tearful 
April  evening,  Johnson,  Burke,  Reynolds,  Beauclerk, 
Boswell,  Davies,  Kelly,  Palmer,  and  the  rest  of  that 
broken  circle,  may  have  gathered  to  witness 

"  The  duties  by  the  lawn-robed  prelate  paid. 
And  the  last  rites  that  dust  to  dust  conveyed." 

No  place  could  be  less  romantic  than  Southwark  is 
now  ;  but  there  are  few  places  in  England  that  possess 
a  greater  charm  for  the  literary  pilgrim.  Shakespeare 
lived  there,  and  it  was  there  that  he  wrote  for  a  theatre 
and  made  a  fortune.  Old  London  Bridge  spanned  the 
Thames  at  this  point,  in  those  days,  and  was  the  only 
road  to  the  Surrey  side  of  the  river.  The  theatre  stood 
near  the  end  of  the  bridge  and  was  thus  easy  of  access 
to  the  wits  and  beaux  of  Londofi.  No  trace  of  it  now 
remains ;  but  a  public-house  called  the  Globe,  which 
was  its  name,  is  standing  near,  and  the  old  church  of 
St.  Saviour  —  into  which  Shakespeare  must  often  have 
entered  —  still  braves  the  storm  and  still  resists  the 
encroachments  of  time  and  change.  In  Shakespeare's 
day  there  were  houses  on  each  side  of  London  Bridge; 
and  as  he  walked  on  the  bank  of  the  Thames  he  could 
look  across  to  the  Tower,  and  to  Baynard  Castle,  which 
had  been  the  residence  of  Richard,  Duke  of  Gloster, 
and  could  see,  uplifted  high  in  air,  the  spire  of  old  St. 
Paul's.  The  borough  of  Southwark  was  then  but  thinly 
peopled.  Many  of  its  houses,  as  may  be  seen  in  an 
old  picture  of   the  city,  were  surrounded   by  fields  or 


IV  RAMBLES    IN    LONDON  45 

gardens ;  and  life  to  its  inhabitants  must  have  been 
comparatively  rural.  Now  it  is  packed  with  buildings, 
gridironed  with  railways,  crowded  with  people,  and  to 
the  last  degree  resonant  and  feverish  with  action  and 
effort.  Life  swarms,  traffic  bustles,  and  travel  thunders 
all  round  the  cradle  of  the  British  drama.  The  old 
church  of  St.  Saviour  alone  preserves  the  sacred 
memory  of  the  past.  I  made  a  pilgrimage  to  that 
shrine,  with  Arthur  Sketchley  (George  Rose),  one  of 
the  kindliest  humourists  in  England.  (Obiit  November 
13,  1882.)  We  embarked  at  Westminster  Bridge  and 
landed  close  by  the  church  in  Southwark,  and  we  were 
so  fortunate  as  to  get  permission  to  enter  it  without  a 
guide.  The  oldest  part  of  it  is  the  Lady  chapel  — 
which,  in  English  cathedrals,  is  almost  invariably  placed 
behind  the  choir.  Through  this  we  strolled,  alone  and 
in  silence.  Every  footstep  there  falls  upon  a  grave. 
The  pavement  is  one  mass  of  gravestones  ;  and  through 
the  tall,  stained  windows  of  the  chapel  a  solemn  light 
pours  in  upon  the  sculptured  names  of  men  and  women 
who  have  long  been  dust.  In  one  corner  is  an  ancient 
stone  coffin  —  a  relic  of  the  Roman  days  of  Britain. 
This  is  the  place  in  which  Stephen  Gardiner,  Bishop  of 
Winchester,  in  the  days  of  cruel  Queen  Mary,  held  his 
ecclesiastical  court  and  doomed  many  a  dissentient 
devotee  to  the  rack  and  the  fagot.  Here  was  con- 
demned John  Rogers,  —  afterwards  burnt  at  the  stake, 
in  Smithfield.  Queen  Mary  and  Queen  Elizabeth  may 
often  have  entered  this  chapel.  But  it  is  in  the  choir 
that  the  pilgrim  pauses  with  most  of  reverence ;  for 
there,  not  far  from  the  altar,  he  stands  at  the  graves  of 
Edmund  Shakespeare,  John  Fletcher,  and  Philip  Mas- 


Gower's  Monument. 


ciiAi'.  IV  RAMBLES   IN    LONDON  47 

singer.  They  apparently  rest  almost  side  by  side,  and 
only  their  names  and  the  dates  of  their  death  are  cut 
in  the  tablets  that  mark  their  sepulchres.  Edmund 
Shakespeare,  the  younger  brother  of  William,  was  an 
actor  in  his  company,  and  died  in  1607,  aged  twenty- 
seven.  l"he  great  poet  must  have  stood  at  that  grave, 
and  suffered  and  wept  there  ;  and  somehow  the  lover 
of  Shakespeare  comes  very  near  to  the  heart  of  the 
master  when  he  stands  in  that  place.  Massinger  was 
buried  there,  March  18,  1638,  —  the  parish  register 
recording  him  as  "a  stranger."  Fletcher  —  of  the 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  alliance  —  was  buried  there,  in 
1625  :  Beaumont's  grave  is  in  the  Abbey.  The  dust  of 
Henslowe  the  manager  also  rests  beneath  the  pavement 
of  St.  Saviour's.  Bishop  Gardiner  was  buried  there, 
with  pompous  ceremonial,  in  1555,  —  but  subsequently 
his  remains  were  removed  to  the  cathedral  at  Win- 
chester. The  great  prelate  Lancelot  Andrews,  com- 
memorated by  Milton,  found  his  grave  there,  in  1626. 
The  royal  poet  King  James  the  First,  of  Scotland,  was 
married  there,  in  1423,  to  Jane,  daughter  of  the  Earl  of 
Somerset  and  niece  of  Cardinal  Beaufort.  In  the  south 
transept  of  the  church  is  the  tomb  of  John  Gower,  the 
old  poet  —  whose  efifigy,  carved  and  painted,  reclines 
upon  it  and  is  not  attractive.  A  formal,  severe  aspect 
he  must  have  had,  if  he  resembled  that  image.  The 
tomb  has  been  moved  from  the  spot  where  it  first  stood 
—  a  proceeding  made  necessary  by  a  fire  that  destroyed 
part  of  the  old  church.  It  is  said  that  Gower  caused 
the  tomb  to  be  erected  during  his  lifetime,  so  that  it 
might  be  in  readiness  to  receive  his  bones.  The  bones 
are    lost,    but    the    memorial    remains  —  sacred    to    the 


48 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


memory  of  the  father  of  English  song.  This  tomb  was 
restored  by  the  Duke  of  Sutherland,  in  1832.  It  is 
enclosed  by  a  little  grill  made  of  iron  spears,  painted 
brown  and  gilded  at  their  points.  I  went  into  the  new 
part  of   the  church,   and,   alone,   knelt   in   one  of   the 


AiidreTi'S  Movument. 


pews  and  long  remained  there,  overcome  with  thoughts 
of  the  past  and  of  the  transient,  momentary  nature  of 
this  our  earthly  life  and  the  shadows  that  we  pursue. 

One  object  of  merriment  attracts  a  passing  glance  in 
that  old  church.  There  is  a  tomb  in  a  corner  of  it 
that   commemorates   Dr.   Lockyer,  a   maker  of    patent 


IV 


RAMP.LKS    IX    I.OXDOX 


49 


physic,  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second.  This  ehibo- 
rate  structure  presents  an  effigy  of  the  doctor,  together 
with  a  sounding  epita))h  which  declares  that 

'•  His  virtues  and  his  pills  are  so  well  known 
'Piiat  envy  can"t  confine  them  under  stone." 

Shakespeare  once  lived  in  Clink  Street,  in  the  bor- 
ough of  Southwark.  Goldsmith  practised  medicine 
there.  Chaucer  came  there,  with  his  Canterbury  Pil- 
grims, and  lodged  at  the  Tabard  inn,  which  has  dis- 
appeared. It  must  have  been  a  romantic  region  in 
the  old  times.     It  is  anything  but  romantic  now. 


CHAPTER   V 


A    VISIT    TO    WINDSOR 


F  the  beauty  of  England  were  only  super- 
ficial it  would  produce  only  a  superficial 
effect.  It  would  cause  a  passing  pleasure 
and  would  be  forgotten.  It  certainly 
would  not  —  as  now  in  fact  it  does  —  in- 
spire a  deep,  joyous,  serene  and  grateful  contentment, 
and  linger  in  the  mind,  a  gracious  and  beneficent  re- 
membrance. The  conquering  and  lasting  potency  of  it 
resides  not  alone  in  loveliness  of  expression  but  in  love- 
liness of  character.  Having  first  greatly  blessed  the 
British  islands  with  the  natural  advantages  of  position, 
climate,  soil,  and  products,  nature  has  wrought  their  de- 
velopment and  adornment  as  a  necessary  consequence 
of  the  spirit  of  their  inhabitants.  The  picturesque  vari- 
ety and  pastoral  repose  of  the  English  landscape  spring, 
in  a  considerable  measure,  from  the  imaginative  taste 
and  the  affectionate  gentleness  of  the  English  people. 
The  state  of  the  country,  like  its  social  constitution, 
flows  from  principles  within,  which  are  constantly  sug- 
gested, and  it  steadily  comforts  and  nourishes  the  mind 

51 


:-i-^  f ' 


r^^j^'^    r^ 


\  t 


i' 

'^ 

.7 

\    t 

^V 

> 

i.i 

*»;■ 

c 


■« 

.« 


CHAP.  V  A   VISIT    ['O    WINDSOR  53 

with  a  sense  of  kindly  feeling,  moral  rectitude,  solidity, 
and  permanence.  Thus  in  the  peculiar  beauty  of  Eng- 
land the  ideal  is  made  the  actual  —  is  expressed  in  things 
more  than  in  words,  and  in  things  by  which  words  are 
transcended.  Milton's  "  L'Allegro,"  fine  as  it  is,  is  not  so 
fine  as  the  scenery  —  the  crystallised,  embodied  poetry 
—  out  of  which  it  arose.  All  the  delicious  rural  verse 
that  has  been  written  in  England  is  only  the  excess  and 
superflux  of  her  own  poetic  opulence :  it  has  rippled  from 
the  hearts  of  her  poets  just  as  the  fragrance  floats  away 
from  her  hawthorn  hedges.  At  every  step  of  his  prog- 
ress the  pilgrim  through  English  scenes  is  impressed  with 
this  sovereign  excellence  of  the  accomplished  fact,  as  con- 
trasted with  any  words  that  can  be  said  in  its  celebration. 
Among  representative  scenes  that  are  eloquent  with 
this  instructive  meaning,  —  scenes  easily  and  pleasurably 
accessible  to  the  traveller  in  what  Dickens  expressively 
called  "the  green,  English  summer  weather,"  —  is  the 
region  of  Windsor.  The  chief  features  of  it  have  often 
been  described ;  the  charm  that  it  exercises  can  only  be 
suggested.  To  see  Windsor,  moreover,  is  to  compre- 
hend as  at  a  glance  the  old  feudal  system,  and  to  feel 
in  a  profound  and  special  way  the  pomp  of  English 
character  and  history.  More  than  this :  it  is  to  rise  to  the 
ennobling  serenity  that  always  accompanies  broad,  retro- 
spective contemplation  of  the  current  of  human  affairs. 
In  this  quaint,  decorous  town  —  nestled  at  the  base  of 
that  mighty  and  magnificent  castle  which  has  been  the 
home  of  princes  for  more  than  five  hundred  years  — 
the  imaginative  mind  wanders  over  vast  tracts  of  the 
past  and  beholds  as  in  a  mirror  the  pageants  of  chivalry, 
the  coronations  of  kings,  the  strife  of  sects,  the  battles 


54  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,   v 

of  armies,  the  schemes  of  statesmen,  the  decay  of  tran- 
sient systems,  the  growth  of  a  rational  civilisation,  and 
the  everlasting  march  of  thought.  Every  prospect  of 
the  region  intensifies  this  sentiment  of  contemplative 
grandeur.  As  you  look  from  the  castle  walls  your  gaze 
takes  in  miles  and  miles  of  blooming  country,  sprinkled 
over  with  little  hamlets,  wherein  the  utmost  stateliness 
of  learning  and  rank  is  gracefully  commingled  with  all 
that  is  lovely  and  soothing  in  rural  life.  Not  far  away 
rise  the  "  antique  towers  "  of  Eton  — 

••  Where  grateful  science  still  adores 
Her  Henry's  holy  shade." 

It  was  in  Windsor  Castle  that  her  Henry  was  born  ;  and 
there  he  often  held  his  court ;  and  it  is  in  St.  George's 
chapel  that  his  ashes  repose.  In  the  dim  distance 
stands  the  church  of  Stoke-Pogis,  about  which  Gray 
used  to  wander, 

"  Beneath  those  rugged  elms,  that  yew-tree's  shade." 

You  recognise  now  a  deeper  significance  than  ever  be- 
fore in  the  "solemn  stillness"  of  the  incomparable 
Elegy.  The  luminous  twilight  mood  of  that  immortal 
poem  —  its  pensive  reverie  and  solemn  passion  —  is  in- 
herent in  the  scene ;  and  you  feel  that  it  was  there,  and 
there  only,  that  the  genius  of  its  exceptional  author  — 
austerely  gentle  and  severely  pure,  and  thus  in  perfect 
harmony  with  its  surroundings  —  could  have  been  moved 
to  that  sublime  strain  of  inspiration  and  eloquence. 
Near  at  hand,  in  the  midst  of  your  reverie,  the  mellow 
organ  sounds  from  the  chapel  of,  St.  George,  where, 
under  "fretted  vault"  and  over  "long-drawn  aisle," 
depend   the    ghostly,   mouldering    banners    of    ancient 


c5 


■§< 


L) 


^ 


56  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  v 

knights  —  as  still  as  the  bones  of  the  dead-and-gone 
monarchs  that  crumble  in  the  crypt  below.  In  this 
church  are  many  of  the  old  kings  and  nobles  of  Eng- 
land. The  handsome  and  gallant  Edward  the  Fourth 
here  found  his  grave ;  and  near  it  is  that  of  the  accom- 
plished Hastings' — his  faithful  friend,  to  the  last  and 
after.  Here  lies  the  dust  of  the  stalwart,  impetuous, 
and  savage  Henry  the  Eighth,  and  here,  at  midnight, 
by  the  light  of  torches,  they  laid  beneath  the  pavement 
the  mangled  body  of  Charles  the  First.  As  you  stand 
on  Windsor  ramparts,  pondering  thus  upon  the  storied 
past  and  the  evanescence  of  "  all  that  beauty,  all  that 
wealth  e'er  gave,"  your  eyes  rest  dreamily  on  green 
fields  far  below,  through  which,  under  tall  elms,  the 
brimming  and  sparkling  river  flows  on  without  a  sound, 
and  in  which  a  few  figures,  dwarfed  by  distance,  flit  here 
and  there,  in  seeming  aimless  idleness ;  while,  warned 
homeward  by  impending  sunset,  the  chattering  birds 
circle  and  float  around  the  lofty  towers  of  the  castle ; 
and  delicate  perfumes  of  seringa  and  jasmine  are  wafted 
up  from  dusky,  unknown  depths  at  the  base  of  its  ivied 
steep.  At  such  an  hour  I  stood  on  those  ramparts  and 
saw  the  shy  villages  and  rich  meadows  of  fertile  Berk- 
shire, all  red  and  golden  with  sunset  light ;  and  at  such 
an  hour  I  stood  in  the  lonely  cloisters  of  St.  George's 
chapel,  and  heard  the  distant  organ  sob,  and  saw  the 
sunlight  fade  up  the  gray  walls,  and  felt  and  knew 
the  sanctity  of  silence.  Age  and  death  have  made  this 
church  illustrious  ;  but  the  spot  itself  has  its  own  innate 
charm  of  mystical  repose. 

''  No  use  of  lanterns  ;  and  in  one  place  lay 
Feathers  and  dust  to-day  and  yesterday." 


Windsor  Forest  and  Park. 


58  SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND  chap. 

The  drive  from  the  front  of  Windsor  Castle  is  through 
a  broad  and  stately  avenue,  three  miles  in  length,  straight 
as  an  arrow  and  level  as  a  standing  pool ;  and  this  white 
highway  through  the  green  and  fragrant  sod  is  sumptu- 
ously embowered,  from  end  to  end,  with  double  rows  of 
magnificent  elms  and  oaks.  The  Windsor  avenue, 
like  the  splendid  chestnut  grove  at  Bushey  Park,  long 
famous  among  the  pageants  of  rural  England,  has  often 
been  described.  It  is  after  leaving  this  that  the  rambler 
comes  upon  the  rarer  beauties  of  Windsor  Park  and 
Forest.  From  the  far  end  of  the  avenue  —  where,  in 
a  superb  position,  the  equestrian  statue  of  King  George 
the  Third  rises  on  its  massive  pedestal  of  natural  rock, 

—  the  road  winds  away,  through  shaded  dell  and  ver- 
dant glade,  past  great  gnarled  beeches  and  under  boughs 
of  elm,  and  yew,  and  oak,  till  its  silver  thread  is  lost  in 
the  distant  woods.  At  intervals  a  sinuous  pathway 
strays  off  to  some  secluded  lodge,  half  hidden  in  foliage 

—  the  property  of  the  Crown,  and  the  rustic  residence 
of  a  scion  of  the  royal  race.  In  one  of  those  retreats 
dwelt  poor  old  George  the  Third,  in  the  days  of  his 
mental  darkness ;  and  the  memory  of  the  agonising 
king  seems  still  to  cast  a  shadow  on  the  mysterious  and 
melancholy  house.  They  show  you,  under  glass,  in  one 
of  the  lodge  gardens,  an  enormous  grapevine,  owned 
by  the  Queen  —  a  vine  which,  from  its  single  stalwart 
trunk,  spreads  its  teeming  branches,  laterally,  more 
than  a  hundred  feet  in  each  direction.  So  come  use 
and  thrift,  hand  in  hand  with  romance  !  Many  an  aged 
oak  is  passed,  in  your  progress,  round  which,  "  at  still 
midnight,"  Heme  the  Hunter  might  yet  take  his  ghostly 
prowl,  shaking  his  chain  "  in  a  most  hideous  and  dread- 


A   VISIT   TO    WINDSOR 


59 


fill  manner."  The  wreck  of  the  veritable  Heme's  Oak, 
it  is  said,  was  rooted  out,  together  with  other  ancient 
and  decayed  trees,  in  the  time  of  George  the  Third, 
and  in  somewhat  too  Hteral  fulfilment  of  his  Majesty's 


The   Curfew    Toiuer. 

misinterpreted  command.  This  great  park  is  fourteen 
miles  in  circumference  and  contains  nearly  four  thou- 
sand acres,  and  many  of  the  youngest  trees  that  adorn 
it  are  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  old.  Far 
in  its  heart  you  stroll  by  Virginia  Water — an  artificial 
lake,  but  faultless  in  its  gentle  beauty  —  and  perceive 


60  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

it  SO  deep  and  so  breezy  that  a  full-rigged  ship-of-war, 
with  armament,  can  navigate  its  wind-swept,  curling 
billows.  This  lake  was  made  by  that  sanguinary  Duke 
of  Cumberland  who  led  the  English  forces  at  Culloden. 
In  the  dim  groves  that  fringe  its  margin  are  many  nests 
wherein  pheasants  are  bred,  to  fall  by  the  royal  shot  and 
to  supply  the  royal  table  :  those  you  may  contemplate 
but  not  approach.  At  a  point  in  your  walk,  sequestered 
and  lonely,  they  have  set  up  and  skilfully  disposed  the 
fragments  of  a  genuine  ruined  temple,  brought  from  the 
remote  East  —  relic  perchance  of  "  Tadmor's  marble 
waste,"  and  certainly  a  most  solemn  memorial  of  the 
morning  twilight  of  time.  Broken  arch,  storm-stained 
pillar,  and  shattered  column  are  here  shrouded  with 
moss  and  ivy ;  and  should  you  chance  to  see  them  as  the 
evening  shadows  deepen  and  the  evening  wind  sighs 
mournfully  in  the  grass  your  fancy  will  not  fail  to 
drink  in  the  perfect  illusion  that  one  of  the  stateliest 
structures  of  antiquity  has  slowly  crumbled  where  now 
its  fragments  remain. 

"  Quaint "  is  a  descriptive  epithet  that  has  been 
much  abused,  but  it  may,  with  absolute  propriety,  be 
applied  to  Windsor.  The  devious  little  streets  there 
visible,  and  the  carved  and  timber-crossed  buildings, 
often  of  great  age,  are  uncommonly  rich  in  the  expres- 
siveness of  imaginative  character.  The  emotions  and 
the  fancy,  equally  with  the  sense  of  necessity  and  the  in- 
stinct of  use,  have  exercised  their  influence  and  uttered 
their  spirit  in  the  shaping  and  adornment  of  the  town. 
While  it  constantly  feeds  the  eye  —  with  that  pleasing 
irregularity  of  lines  and  forms  which  is  so  delicious  and 
refreshing  —  it  quite  as  constantly  nurtures  the  sense 


A   VISIT  TO   WINDSOR 


61 


of  romance  that  ought  to  play  so  large  a  part  in  our 
lives,  redeeming  us  from  the  tyranny  of  the  common- 
place and  intensifying  all  the  high  feelings  and  noble 
aspirations  that  are  possible  to  human  nature.  England 
contains  many  places  like  Windsor ;  some  that  blend 
in  even  richer  amplitude  the  elements  of  quaintness, 
loveliness,  and  magnificence.  The  meaning  of  them 
all  is  the  same:  that  romance,  beauty,  and  gentleness 
are  forever  vital ;  that  their  forces  are  within  our  souls, 
and  ready  and  eager  to  find  their  way  into  our  thoughts, 
actions,  and  circumstances,  and  to  brighten  for  every 
one  of  us  the  face  of  every  day  ;  that  they  ought  neither 
to  be  relegated  to  the  distant  and  the  past  nor  kept  for 
our  books  and  day-dreams  alone;  but  —  in  a  calmer  and 
higher  mood  than  is  usual  in  this  age  of  universal  medi- 
ocrity, critical  scepticism,  and  miscellaneous  tumult  — 
should  be  permitted  to  flow  forth  into  our  architecture, 
adornments,  and  customs,  to  hallow  and  preserve  our 
antiquities,  to  soften  our  manners,  to  give  us  tranquillity, 
patience,  and  tolerance,  to  make  our  country  loveable 
for  our  own  hearts,  and  so  to  enable  us  to  bequeath  it, 
sure  of  love  and  reverence,  to  succeeding  ages. 


CHAPTER   VI 


THE    PALACE    OF    WESTMINSTER 


HE  American  who,  having  been  a  careful 
and  interested  reader  of  English  history, 
visits  London  for  the  first  time,  half  expects 
to  find  the  ancient  city  in  a  state  of  mild 
decay ;  and  consequently  he  is  a  little 
startled  at  first,  upon  realising  that  the  present  is  quite 
as  vital  as  ever  the  past  was,  and  that  London  antiquity 
is,  in  fact,  swathed  in  the  robes  of  everyday  action  and 
very  much  alive.  When,  for  example,  you  enter  West- 
minster Hall — "the  great  hall  of  William  Rufus  "  — 
you  are  beneath  one  of  the  most  glorious  canopies  in 
the  world  —  one  that  was  built  by  Richard  the  Second, 
whose  grave,  chosen  by  himself,  is  in  the  Abbey,  just 
across  the  street  from  where  you  stand.  But  this  old 
hall  is  now  only  a  vestibule  to  the  palace  of  Westmin- 
ster. The  Lords  and  the  Commons  of  England,  on  their 
way  to  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  pass  every  day  over 
the  spot  on  which  Charles  the  First  was  tried  and  con- 
demned, and  on  which  occurred  the  trial  of  Warren 
It  is  a  mere  thoroughfare  —  glorious  though 
62 


Hastings. 


in--    / 


64 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


fiSffi 


it  be,  alike  in  structure  and  historic  renown. 
The  Palace  Yard,  near  by,  was  the  scene  of 
the  execution  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  In 
Bishopsgate  Street  stands  Crosby  House ; 
the  same  to  which,  in  Shakespeare's  tragedy, 
the  Duke  of  Gloster  requests  the  retirement 
of  Lady  Anne.  It  is  a  restaurant  now,  and 
you  may  dine  in  the  veritable  throne-room  of 
Richard  the  Third.  The  house  of  Cardinal 
Wolsey  in  Fleet  Street  is  now  a  shop. 
Milton  once  lived  in  Golden  Lane,  and 
Golden  Lane  was  a  sweet  and  quiet  spot. 
It  is  a  dingy  and  dismal  street  now,  and 
the  visitor  is  glad  to  get  out  of  it.  To-day 
makes  use  of  yesterday,  all  the  world  over. 
It  is  not  in  London,  certainly,  that  you  find 
anything  —  except  old  churches  —  mouldering 
in  silence,  solitude,  and  neglect. 

Those  who  see  every  day  during  the  Par- 
liamentary session  the  mace  that  is  borne 
through  the  lobby  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, although  they  are  obliged,  on  every 
occasion,  to  uncover  as  it  passes,  do  not, 
probably,  view  that  symbol  with  much  inter- 
est. Yet  it  is  the  same  mace  that  Oliver 
Cromwell  insulted,^  when  he  dissolved  the 
Parliament  and  cried  out,  "  Take  away  that 


1  An  error.  The  House  of  Commons  has  had  three  maces. 
The  first  one  disappeared  after  the  judicial  slaughter  of 
Charles  the  First.  The  Cromwell  mace  was  carried  to  the 
island  of  Jamaica,  and  is  there  preserved  in  a  museum  at 


Kingston. 


The  third  is  the  one  now  in  use. 


TAe  Mace. 


VI  THE  PALACE  OF   WESTMINSTER  65 

bauble  !  "  I  saw  it  one  day,  on  its  passage  to  the  table 
of  the  Commons,  and  was  glad  to  remove  the  hat  of 
respect  to  what  it  signifies — the  power  and  majesty 
of  the  free  people  of  England.  The  Speaker  of  the 
House  was  walking  behind  it,  very  grand  in  his  wig 
and  gown,  and  the  members  trooped  in  at  his  heels  to 
secure  their  places  by  being  present  at  the  opening 
prayer.  A  little  later  I  was  provided  with  a  seat,  in 
a  dim  corner,  in  that  august  assemblage  of  British  sena- 
tors, and  could  observe  at  ease  their  management  of  the 
public  business.  The  Speaker  was  on  his  throne  ;  the 
mace  was  on  its  table;  the  hats  of  the  Commons  were  on 
their  heads ;  and  over  this  singular,  animated,  impressive 
scene  the  waning  light  of  a  summer  afternoon  poured 
softly  down,  through  the  high,  stained,  and  pictured 
windows  of  one  of  the  most  symmetrical  halls  in  the 
world.  It  did  not  happen  to  be  a  day  of  excitement. 
The  Irish  members  had  not  then  begun  to  impede  the 
transaction  of  business,  for  the  sake  of  drawing  atten- 
tion to  the  everlasting  wrongs  of  Ireland.  Yet  it  was  a 
lively  day.  Curiosity  on  the  part  of  the  Opposition  and 
a  respectful  incertitude  on  the  part  of  Her  Majesty's 
ministers  were  the  prevailing  conditions.  I  had  never 
before  heard  so  many  questions  asked  —  outside  of  the 
f  French  grammar — and  asked  to  so  little  purpose.'- 
Everybody  wanted  to  know,  and  nobody  wanted  to  tell.' 
Each  inquirer  took  off  his  hat  when  he  rose  to  ask,  and 
put  it  on  again  when  he  sat  down  to  be  answered. 
Each  governmental  sphinx  bared  his  brow  when  he 
emerged  to  divulge,  and  covered  it  again  when  he- 
subsided  without  divulging.  The  superficial  respect  of  i 
these   interlocutors    for   each    other   steadily  remained, 


66  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  Chap. 

however,  of  the  most  deferential  and  considerate  de- 
scription ;  so  that  —  without  discourtesy  —  it  was  im- 
possible not  to  think  of  Byron's  "mildest  mannered 
man  that  ever  scuttled  ship  or  cut  a  throat."  Under- 
neath this  velvety,  purring,  conventional  manner  the 
observer  could  readily  discern  the  fires  of  passion, 
prejudice,  and  strong  antagonism.  They  make  no 
parade  in  the  House  of  Commons.  They  attend  to 
their  business.  And  upon  every  topic  that  is  brought 
before  their  notice  they  have  definite  ideas,  strong 
convictions,  and  settled  purposes.  The  topic  of  Army 
Estimates  upon  this  day  seemed  especially  to  arouse 
their  ardour.  Discussion  of  this  was  continually  diver- 
sified by  cries  of  "Oh!"  and  of  "Hear!"  and  of 
"  Order !  "  and  sometimes  those  cries  savoured  more  of 
derision  than  of  compliment.  Many  persons  spoke,  but 
no  person  spoke  well.  An  off-hand,  matter-of-fact, 
shambling  method  of  speech  would  seem  to  be  the 
fashion  in  the  British  House  of  Commons.  I  remem- 
bered the  anecdote  that  De  Quincey  tells,  about 
Sheridan  and  the  young  member  who  quoted  Greek. 
It  was  easy  to  perceive  how  completely  out  of  place  the 
sophomore  orator  would  be,  in  that  assemblage.  Bri- 
tons like  better  to  make  speeches  than  to  hear  them, 
and  they  will  never  be  slaves  to  bad  oratory.  The 
moment  a  windy  gentleman  got  the  floor,  and  began  to 
read  a  manuscript  respecting  the  Indian  Government, 
as  many  as  forty  Commons  arose  and  noisily  walked 
out  of  the  House.  Your  pilgrim  likewise  hailed  the 
moment  of  his  deliverance  and  was  glad  to  escape  to 
the  open  air. 

Books  have  been  written  to  describe  the  Palace  of 


VI  THE   PALACE   OF   WESTMINSTER  67 

Westminster ;  but  it  is  observable  that  this  structure, 
however  much  its  magnificence  deserves  commemora- 
tive applause,  is  deficient,  as  yet,  in  the  charm  of  asso- 
ciation. The  old  Palace  of  St.  James,  with  its  low, 
dusky  walls,  its  round  turrets,  and  its  fretted  battle- 
ments, is  more  impressive,  because  history  has  freighted 
it  with  meaning  and  time  has  made  it  beautiful.  But 
the  Palace  of  Westminster  is  a  splendid  structure.  It 
covers  eight  acres  of  ground,  on  the  bank  of  the 
Thames ;  it  contains  eleven  quadrangles  and  five  hun- 
dred rooms ;  and  when  its  niches  for  statuary  have 
been  filled  it  will  contain  two  hundred  and  twenty-six 
statues.  The  monuments  in  St.  Stephen's  Hall  —  into 
which  you  pass  from  Westminster  Hall,  which  has  been 
incorporated  into  the  Palace  and  is  its  only  ancient  and 
therefore  its  most  interesting  feature  —  indicate,  very 
eloquently,  what  a  superb  art  gallery  this  will  one  day 
become.  The  statues  are  the  images  of  Selden,  Hamp- 
den, Falkland,  Clarendon,  Somers,  Walpole,  Chatham, 
Mansfield,  Burke,  Fox,  Pitt,  and  Grattan.  Those  of 
Mansfield  and  Grattan  present,  perhaps,  the  most  of 
character  and  power,  making  you  feel  that  they  are 
indubitably  accurate  portraits,  and  winning  you  by  the 
charm  of  personality.  There  are  statues,  also,  in  West- 
minster Hall,  commemorative  of  the  Georges,  William 
and  Mary,  and  Anne ;  but  it  is  not  of  these  you  think, 
nor  of  any  local  and  everyday  object,  when  you  stand 
beneath  the  wonderful  roof  of  Richard  the  Second. 
Nearly  eight  hundred  years  "  their  cloudy  wings 
expand"  above  that  fabric,  and  copiously  shed  upon  it 
the  fragrance  of  old  renown.  Richard  the  Second  was 
deposed   there  :    Cromwell   was   there   installed    Lord 


68  SHAKESPEARE'S  ENGLAND  Chap. 

Protector  of  England  :  John  Fisher,  Sir  Thomas  More, 
and  Strafford  were  there  condemned  :  and  it  was  there 
that  the  possible,  if  not  usual,  devotion  of  woman's 
heart  was  so  touchingly  displayed  by  her 

"  Whose  faith  drew  strength  from  death, 
And  prayed  her  Russell  up  to  God." 

No  one  can  realise,  without  personal  experience,  the 
number  and  variety  of  pleasures  accessible  to  the  resi- 
dent of  London.  These  may  not  be  piquant  to  him 
who  has  them  always  within  his  reach.  I  met  with 
several  residents  of  the  British  capital  who  had  always 
intended  to  visit  the  Tower  but  had  never  done  so.  But 
to  the  stranger  they  possess  a  constant  and  keen  fasci- 
nation. The  Derby  this  year  [1877]  was  thought  to  be 
comparatively  a  tame  race  ;  but  I  know  of  one  spectator 
who  saw  it  from  the  top  of  the  grand  stand  and  who 
thought  that  the  scene  it  presented  was  wonderfully 
brilliant.  The  sky  had  been  overcast  with  dull  clouds 
till  the  moment  when  the  race  was  won;  but  just  as 
Archer,  rising  in  his  saddle,  lifted  his  horse  forward 
and  gained  the  goal  alone,  the  sun  burst  forth  and  shed 
upon  the  downs  a  sheen  of  gold,  and  lit  up  all  the 
distant  hills,  and  all  the  far-stretching  roads  that  wind 
away  from  the  region  of  Epsom  like  threads  of  silver 
through  the  green.  Carrier-pigeons  were  instantly 
launched  off  to  London,  with  the  news  of  the  victory  of 
Silvio.  There  was  one  winner  on  the  grand  stand  who 
had  laid  bets  on  Silvio,  for  no  other  reason  than  because 
that  horse  bore  the  prettiest  name  in  the  list.  The 
Derby,  like  Christmas,  comes  but  once  a  year ;  but 
other   allurements    are    almost   perennial.     Greenwich, 


< 

H 
cu 
w 
o 

X 

o 

z 
u 
w 
a: 
o 


VI  THE   PALACE   OF   WESTMINSTER  69 

for  instance,  with  its  white-bait  dinner,  invites  the 
epicure  during  the  best  part  of  the  London  season.  A 
favourite  tavern  is  the  Trafalgar — in  which  each  room 
is  named  after  some  magnate  of  the  old  British  navy; 
and  Nelson,  Hardy,  and  Rodney  are  household  words. 
Another  cheery  place  of  resort  is  The  Ship.  The 
Hospitals  are  at  Greenwich  that  Dr.  Johnson  thought 
to  be  too  fine  for  a  charity ;  and  back  of  these  —  which 
are  ordinary  enough  now,  in  comparison  with  modern 
structures  erected  for  a  kindred  purpose  —  stands  the 
famous  Observatory  that  keeps  time  for  Europe.  This 
place  is  hallowed  also  by  the  grave  of  Clive  and  by  that 
of  Wolfe  —  to  the  latter  of  whom,  however,  there  is  a 
monument  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Greenwich  makes 
one  think  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  was  born  there,  who 
often  held  her  court  there,  and  who  often  sailed  thence, 
in  her  barge,  up  the  river  to  Richmond  —  her  favourite 
retreat  and  the  scene  of  her  last  days  and  her  pathetic 
death.  Few  spots  can  compare  with  Richmond,  in 
brilliancy  of  landscape.  That  place — the  Shene  of  old 
times  —  was  long  a  royal  residence.  The  woods  and 
meadows  that  you  see  from  the  terrace  of  the  Star  and 
Garter  tavern  —  spread  upon  a  rolling  plain  as  far  as 
the  eye  can  reach  —  sparkle  like  emeralds ;  and  the 
Thames,  dotted  with  little  toy-like  boats,  shines  with  all 
the  deep  lustre  of  the  blackest  onyx.  Richmond,  for 
those  who  honour  genius  and  who  love  to  walk  in  the 
footsteps  of  renown,  is  full  of  interest.  Dean  Swift 
once  had  a  house  there,  the  site  of  which  is  still  indi- 
cated. Pope's  rural  home  was  in  the  adjacent  village 
of  Twickenham, — where  it  may  still  be  seen.  Horace 
Walpole's  stately  mansion  of  Strawberry  Hill  is  not  far 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP.   VI 


off.  The  poet  Thomson  long  resided  at  Richmond,  in 
a  house  now  used  as  an  hospital,  and  there  he  died. 
Edmund  Kean  and  the  once  famous  Mrs.  Yates  rest 
beneath  Richmond  church,  and  there  also  are  the  ashes 
of  Thomson.  As  I  drove  through  the  sweetly  sylvan 
Park  of  Richmond,  in  the  late  afternoon  of  a  breezy 
summer  day,  and  heard  the  whispering  of  the  great 
elms,  and  saw  the  gentle,  trustful  deer  couched  at  ease 
in  the  golden  glades,  I  heard  all  the  while,  in  the  still 
chambers  of  thought,  the  tender  lament  of  Collins  — 
which  is  now  a  prophecy  fulfilled  : 

"  Remembrance  oft  shall  haunt  the  shore, 

When  Thames  in  summer  wreaths  is  drest ; 
And  oft  suspend  the  dashing  oar, 
To  bid  his  gentle  spirit  rest." 


Queen  Elizabeth's  Cradle. 


CHAPTER   VII 

WARWICK    AND    KENILWORTH 

LL  the  way  from  London  to  Warwick  it 
rained  ;  not  heavily,  but  with  a  gentle 
fall.  The  gray  clouds  hung  low  over 
the  landscape  and  softly  darkened  it  ;  so 
that  meadows  of  scarlet  and  emerald,  the 
shining  foliage  of  elms,  gray  turret,  nestled  cottage  and 
limpid  river  were  as  mysterious  and  evanescent  as  pic- 
tures seen  in  dreams.  At  Warwick  the  rain  had  fallen 
and  ceased,  and  the  walk  from  the  station  to  the  inn 
was  on  a  road  —  or  on  a  footpath  by  the  roadside  — 
still  hard  and  damp  with  the  water  it  had  absorbed.  A 
fresh  wind  blew  from  the  fields,  sweet  with  the  rain  and 
fragrant  with  the  odour  of  leaves  and  flowers.  The 
streets  of  the  ancient  town — entered  through  an  old 
Norman  arch  —  were  deserted  and  silent.  It  was  Sun- 
day when  I  first  came  to  the  country  of  Shakespeare  ; 
and  over  all  the  region  there  brooded  a  sacred  stillness 
peculiar  to  the  time  and  harmonious  beyond  utterance 
with  the  sanctity  of  the  place.  As  I  strive,  after  many 
days,  to  call  back  and  to  fix  in  words  the  impressions 

71 


VII  WARWICK  AND   KENILWORTII  73 

way  you  are  haunted  by  a  vague  sense  of  an  impending 
grandeur ;  you  are  aware  of  a  presence  that  fills  and 
sanctifies  the  scene.  The  emotion  that  is  thus  inspired 
is  very  glorious ;  never  to  be  elsewhere  felt ;  and  never 
to  be  forgotten. 

The  cyclopaedias  and  the  guide-books  dilate,  with 
much  particularity  and  characteristic  eloquence,  upon 
Warwick  Castle  and  other  great  features  of  Warwick- 
shire, but  the  attribute  that  all  such  records  omit  is  the 
atmosphere ;  and  this,  perhaps,  is  rather  to  be  indicated 
than  described.  The  prevailing  quality  of  it  is  a  certain 
high  and  sweet  solemnity  —  a  feeling  kindred  with  the 
placid,  happy  melancholy  that  steals  over  the  mind, 
when,  on  a  sombre  afternoon  in  autumn,  you  stand  in 
the  churchyard,  and  listen,  amid  rustling  branches  and 
sighing  grass,  to  the  low  music  of  distant  organ  and 
chanting  choir.  Peace,  haunted  by  romance,  dwells 
here,  in  reverie.  The  great  tower  of  Warwick,  based  in 
silver  Avon  and  pictured  in  its  slumbering  waters,  seems 
musing  upon  the  centuries  over  which  it  has  watched, 
and  full  of  unspeakable  knowledge  and  thought.  The 
dark  and  massive  gateways  of  the  town  and  the  timber- 
crossed  fronts  of  its  antique  houses  live  on  in  the  same 
strange  dream  and  perfect  repose;  and  all  along  the 
drive  to  Kenilworth  are  equal  images  of  rest —  of  a  rest 
in  which  there  is  nothing  supine  or  sluggish,  no  element 
of  death  or  decay,  but  in  which  passion,  imagination, 
beauty,  and  sorrow,  seized  at  their  topmost  poise,  seem 
crystallised  in  eternal  calm.  What  opulence  of  splendid 
life  is  vital  for  ever  in  Kenilworth's  crumbling  ruin  there 
are  no  words  to  say.  What  pomp  of  royal  banners ! 
what  dignity  of  radiant   cavaliers !    what  loveliness  of 


7+  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

stately  and  exquisite  ladies !  what  magnificence  of  ban- 
quets !  what  wealth  of  pageantry !  what  lustre  of  illu- 
mination !  The  same  festal  music  that  the  poet  Gas- 
coigne  heard  there,  three  hundred  years  ago,  is  still 
sounding  on,  to-day.  The  proud  and  cruel  Leicester 
still  walks  in  his  vaulted  hall.  The  imperious  face 
of  the  Virgin  Queen  still  from  her  dais  looks  down 
on  plumed  courtiers  and  jewelled  dames ;  and  still 
the  moonlight,  streaming  through  the  turret-window, 
falls  on  the  white  bosom  and  the  great,  startled,  black 
eyes  of  Amy  Robsart,  waiting  for  her  lover.  The  gaze 
of  the  pilgrim,  indeed,  rests  only  upon  old,  gray,  broken 
walls,  overgrown  with  green  moss  and  ivy,  and  pierced 
by  irregular  casements  through  which  the  sun  shines, 
and  the  winds  blow,  and  the  rains  drive,  and  the  birds 
fly,  amid  utter  desolation.  But  silence  and  ruin  are 
here  alike  eloquent  and  awful  ;  and,  much  as  the  place 
impresses  you  by  what  remains,  it  impresses  you  far 
more  by  what  has  vanished.  Ambition,  love,  pleasure, 
power,  misery,  tragedy  —  these  are  gone;  and  being 
gone  they  are  immortal.  I  plucked,  in  the  garden  of 
Kenilworth,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  red  roses  that  ever 
grew  ;  and  as  I  pressed  it  to  my  lips  I  seemed  to  touch 
the  lips  of  that  superb,  bewildering  beauty  who  out- 
weighed England's  crown  (at  least  in  story),  and  whose 
spirit  is  the  everlasting  genius  of  the  place. 

There  is  a  row  of  cottages  opposite  to  tlie  ruins  of 
the  castle,  in  which  contentment  seems  to  have  made 
her  home.  The  ivy  embowers  them.  The  roses  cluster 
around  their  little  windows.  The  greensward  slopes 
away,  in  front,  from  big,  flat  stones  that  are  embedded 
in  the  mossy  sod  before  their  doors.     Down  in  the  val- 


VII 


WARWICK   AND   KENILWORTH 


75 


ley,  hard  by,  your  steps  stray  through  an  ancient  grave- 
yard —  in  which  stands  the  parish  church,  a  carefully 
restored  building  of  the  eleventh  century,  with  tower,  and 
clock,  and  bell  —  and  past  a  few  fragments  of  the  Abbey 
and  Monastery  of  St.  Mary,  destroyed  in  1538.  At 
many  another  point,  on  the  roads  betwixt  Warwick  and 
Kenilworth  and  Stratford,  I  came  upon  such  nests  of 
cosy,  rustic  quiet 
and  seeming  hap- 
piness. They 
build  their  coun- 
try houses  low,  in 
England,  so  that 
the  trees  over- 
hang them,  and 
the  cool,  friendly, 
flower-gemmed 


^KC 


1,^  a 


Old  Inn. 


earth  —  parent, 
and  stay,  and 
bourne  of  mortal 
life  —  is  tenderly 
taken  into  their 
companionship. 
Here,  at  Kenil- 
worth, as  elsewhere,  at  such  places  as  Marlowe,  Henley, 
Richmond,  Maidenhead,  Cookham,  and  the  region  round 
about  Windsor,  I  saw  many  a  sweet  nook  where  tired 
life  might  be  content  to  lay  down  its  burden  and  enter 
into  its  rest.  In  all  true  love  of  country  —  a  passion 
that  seems  to  be  more  deeply  felt  in  England  than  any- 
where else  upon  the  globe — there  is  love  for  the  literal 
soil  itself  :  and  surely  that  sentiment  in  the  human  heart 


VII 


WARWICK   AND   KENILWORTII 


77 


honour,  as  long  as  literature  is  prized  among  men  — 
was  the  first,  in  modern  days,  to  discover  the  beau- 
ties and  to  interpret  the  poetry  of  the  birthplace  of 
Shakespeare. 


From  the  IV'arivkk  Shield. 


CHAPTER    VIII 


FIRST    VIEW    OF    STRATFORD-ON-AVON 


NCE  again,  as  it  did  on  that  delicious 
summer  afternoon  which  is  for  ever  mem- 
orable in  my  life,  the  golden  glory  of  the 
westering  sun  burns  on  the  gray  spire  of 
Stratford  church,  and  on  the  ancient 
graveyard  below,  —  wherein  the  mossy  stones  lean  this 
way  and  that,  in  sweet  and  orderly  confusion,  —  and 
on  the  peaceful  avenue  of  limes,  and  on  the  burnished 
water  of  silver  Avon.  The  tall,  pointed,  many-coloured 
windows  of  the  church  glint  in  the  evening  light.  A 
cool  and  fragrant  wind  is  stirring  the  branches  and  the 
grass.  The  small  birds,  calling  to  their  mates  or  sport- 
ing in  the  wanton  pleasure  of  their  airy  life,  are  circling 
over  the  church  roof  or  hiding  in  little  crevices  of  its 
walls.  On  the  vacant  meadows  across  the  river  stretch 
away  the  long  and  level  shadows  of  the  pompous  elms. 
Here  and  there,  upon  the  river's  brink,  are  pairs  of 
what  seem  lovers,  strolling  by  the  reedy  marge,  or  sit- 
ting upon  the  low  tombs,  in  the  Sabbath  quiet.  As  the 
sun  sinks  and  the  dusk  deepens,  two  figures  of  infirm 

78 


Holy  Trinity  Church. 


80  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

old  women,  clad  in  black,  pass  with  slow  and  feeble 
steps  through  the  avenue  of  limes,  and  vanish  around 
an  angle  of  the  church  —  that  now  stands  all  in  shadow  : 
and  no  sound  is  heard  but  the  faint  rustling  of  the 
leaves. 

Once  again,  as  on  that  sacred  night,  the  streets  of 
Stratford  are  deserted  and  silent  under  the  star-lit  sky, 
and  I  am  standing,  in  the  dim  darkness,  at  the  door  of 
the  cottage  in  which  Shakespeare  was  born.  It  is 
empty,  dark,  and  still ;  and  in  all  the  neighbourhood 
there  is  no  stir  nor  sign  of  life ;  but  the  quaint  case- 
ments and  gables  of  this  haunted  house,  its  antique 
porch,  and  the  great  timbers  that  cross  its  front  are 
luminous  as  with  a  light  of  their  own,  so  that  I  see 
them  with  perfect  vision.  I  stand  there  a  long  time, 
and  I  know  that  I  am  to  remember  these  sights  for 
ever,  as  I  see  them  now.  After  a  while,  with  lingering 
reluctance,  I  turn  away  from  this  marvellous  spot,  and, 
presently  passing  through  a  little,  winding  lane,  I  walk 
in  the  High  Street  of  the  town,  and  mark,  at  the  end 
of  the  prospect,  the  illuminated  clock  in  the  tower  of 
the  chapel  of  the  Holy  Cross.  A  few  chance-directed 
steps  bring  me  to  what  was  New  Place  once,  where 
Shakespeare  died ;  and  there  again  I  pause,  and  long 
remain  in  meditation,  gazing  into  the  enclosed  garden, 
where,  under  screens  of  wire,  are  certain  strange  frag- 
ments of  lime  and  stone.  These — which  I  do  not 
then  know  —  are  the  remains  of  the  foundation  of 
Shakespeare's  house.  The  night  wanes ;  and  still  I 
walk  in  Stratford  streets ;  and  by  and  by  I  am  standing 
on  the  bridge  that  spans  the  Avon,  and  looking  down 
at  the  thick-clustering  stars  reflected  in  its  black  and 


VIII  FIRST   VIEW   OF   STRATFORD-ON-AVON  81 

silent  stream.  At  last,  under  the  roof  of  the  Red 
Horse,  I  smk  into  a  troubled  slumber,  from  which  soon 
a  strain  of  celestial  music  —  strong,  sweet,  jubilant,  and 
splendid  —  awakens  me  in  an  instant ;  and  I  start  up 
in  my  bed  —  to  find  that  all  around  me  is  still  as  death  ; 
and  then,  drowsily,  far-off,  the  bell  strikes  three,  in  its 
weird  and  lonesome  tower. 

Every  pilgrim  to  Stratford  knows,  in  a  general  way, 
what  he  will  there  behold.  Copious  and  frequent  de- 
scription of  its  Shakespearean  associations  has  made  the 
place  familiar  to  all  the  world.  Yet  these  Shake- 
spearean associations  keep  a  perennial  freshness,  and  are 
equally  a  surprise  to  the  sight  and  a  wonder  to  the  soul. 
Though  three  centuries  old  they  are  not  stricken  with 
age  or  decay.  The  house  in  Henley  Street,  in  which, 
according  to  accepted  tradition,  Shakespeare  was  born, 
has  been  from  time  to  time  repaired ;  and  so  it  has  been 
kept  sound,  without  having  been  materially  changed 
from  what  it  was  in  Shakespeare's  youth.  The  kind 
ladies,  Miss  Maria  and  Miss  Caroline  Chataway,  who 
take  care  of  it  [1877],  and  with  so  much  pride  and 
courtesy  show  it  to  the  visitor,  called  my  attention  to  a 
bit  of  the  ceiling  of  the  upper  chamber  —  the  room  of 
Shakespeare's  birth  —  which  had  begun  to  droop,  and 
had  been  skilfully  secured  with  little  iron  laths.  It  is  in 
this  room  that  the  numerous  autographs  are  scrawled 
over  the  ceiling  and  walls.  One  side  of  the  chimney- 
piece  here  is  called  "  The  Actor's  Pillar,"  so  richly  is  it 
adorned  with  the  names  of  actors ;  Edmund  Kean's  sig- 
nature being  among  them,  and  still  legible.  On  one  of 
the  window-panes,  cut  with  a  diamond,  is  the  name  of 
"W.  Scott";  and  all  the  panes  are  scratched  with  sig- 


82 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


natures  —  making  you  think  of  Douglas  Jerrold's  re- 
mark on  bad  Shakespearean  commentators,  that  they 
resemble  persons  who  write  on  glass  with  diamonds,  and 
obscure  the  light  with  a  multitude  of  scratches.  The 
floor  of  this  room,  uncarpeted  and  almost  snow-white 
with  much  washing,  seems  still  as  hard  as  iron ;  yet 
its  boards  have  been  hollowed  by  wear,  and  the  heads 

of  the  old  nails  that 
fasten  it  down  gleam 
like  polished  silver. 
You  can  sit  in  an 
antique  chair,  in  a 
corner  of  this  room, 
and  think  unutterable 
things.  There  is,  cer- 
tainly, no  word  that 
can  even  remotely  sug- 
P  gest  the  feeling  with 
which  you  are  then 
overwhelmed.  You 
can  sit  also  in  the 
room  below,  in  the 
seat,  in  the  corner  of 
the  wide  fireplace,  that  Shakespeare  himself  must  often 
have  occupied.  They  keep  but  a  few  sticks  of  furni- 
ture in  any  part  of  the  cottage.  One  room  is  devoted 
to  Shakespearean  relics  —  more  or  less  authentic  ;  one 
of  which  is  a  schoolboy's  desk  that  was  obtained  from 
the  old  grammar-school  in  Church  Street  in  which 
Shakespeare  was  once  a  pupil.  At  the  back  of  the 
cottage,  now  isolated  from  contiguous  structures,  is  a 
pleasant  garden,  and  at  one  side  is  a  cosy,  luxurious  little 


TAe  l7tglenook. 


viii  FIRST   VIEW   OF   STRATFORD-ON-AVON  83 

cabin  —  the  home  of  order  and  of  pious  decorum  —  for 
the  ladies  who  are  custodians  of  the  Shakespeare  House. 
If  you  are  a  favoured  visitor,  you  may  receive  from  that 
garden,  at  parting,  all  the  flowers,  prettily  mounted  upon 
a  sheet  of  paper,  that  poor  Ophelia  names,  in  the  scene 
of  her  madness.  "  There's  rosemary,  that's  for  remem- 
brance :  and  there  is  pansies,  that's  for  thoughts  :  there's 
fennel  for  you,  and  columbines :  there's  rue  for  you : 
there's  a  daisy :  —  I  would  give  you  some  violets,  but 
they  withered  all  when  my  father  died." 

The  minute  knowledge  that  Shakespeare  had  of  plants 
and  flowers,  and  the  loving  appreciation  with  which  he 
describes  pastoral  scenery,  are  explained  to  the  rambler 
in  Stratford,  by  all  that  he  sees  and  hears.  There  is  a 
walk  across  the  fields  to  Shottery  that  the  poet  must 
often  have  taken,  in  the  days  of  his  courtship  of  Anne 
Hathaway.  The  path  to  this  hamlet  passes  through 
pastures  and  gardens,  flecked  everywhere  with  those 
brilliant  scarlet  poppies  that  are  so  radiant  and  so  be- 
witching in  the  English  landscape.  To  have  grown  up 
amid  such  surroundings,  and,  above  all,  to  have  expe- 
rienced amid  them  the  passion  of  love,  must  have  been, 
for  Shakespeare,  the  intuitive  acquirement  of  ample  and 
specific  knowledge  of  their  manifold  beauties.  It  would 
be  hard  to  find  a  sweeter  rustic  retreat  than  Anne  Hatha- 
way's  cottage  is,  even  now.  Tall  trees  embower  it ;  and 
over  its  porches,  and  all  along  its  picturesque,  irregu- 
lar front,  and  on  its  thatched  roof,  the  woodbine  and  the 
ivy  climb,  and  there  are  wild  roses  and  the  maiden's 
blush.  For  the  young  poet's  wooing  no  place  could  be 
fitter  than  this.  He  would  always  remember  it  with 
tender   joy.     They  show  you,  in  that  cottage,  an   old 


^ 


V 


CHAP.  VIII     FIRST  VIEW  OF  STRATFORD-ON-AVON  85 

settle,  by  the  fireside,  whereon  the  lovers  may  have  sat 
together  :  it  formerly  stood  outside  the  door  :  and  in  the 
rude  little  chamber  next  the  roof  an  antique,  carved  bed- 
stead, that  Anne  Hathaway  once  owned.  This,  it  is 
thought,  continued  to  be  Anne's  home  for  several  years 
of  her  married  life  —  her  husband  being  absent  in  Lon- 
don, and  sometimes  coming  down  to  visit  her,  at  Shottery. 
"  He  was  wont,"  says  John  Aubrey,  the  antiquary,  writ- 
ing in  1680,  "to  go  to  his  native  country  once  a  year." 
The  last  surviving  descendant  of  the  Hathaway  family 
—  Mrs.  Baker — lives  in  the  house  now,  and  welcomes 
with  homely  hospitality  the  wanderers,  from  all  lands, 
who  seek  —  in  a  sympathy  and  reverence  most  hon- 
ourable to  human  nature  —  the  shrine  of  Shakespeare's 
love.  There  is  one  such  wanderer  who  will  never  for- 
get the  farewell  clasp  of  that  kind  woman's  hand,  and 
who  has  never  parted  with  her  gift  of  woodbine  and 
roses  from  the  porch  of  Anne  Hathaway's  cottage. 

In  England  it  is  living,  more  than  writing  about  it, 
that  is  esteemed  by  the  best  persons.  They  prize  good 
writing,  but  they  prize  noble  living  far  more.  This  is 
an  ingrained  principle,  and  not  an  artificial  habit,  and 
this  principle  doubtless  was  as  potent  in  Shakespeare's 
age  as  it  is  to-day.  Nothing  could  be  more  natural 
than  that  this  great  writer  should  think  less  of  his 
works  than  of  the  establishment  of  his  home.  He 
would  desire,  having  won  a  fortune,  to  dwell  in  his 
native  place,  to  enjoy  the  companionship  and  esteem 
of  his  neighbours,  to  participate  in  their  pleasures, 
to  help  them  in  their  troubles,  to  aid  in  the  improve- 
ment and  embellishment  of  the  town,  to  deepen  his 
hold  upon   the    affections  of    all  around    him,   and    to 


86  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  CHAP. 

feel  that,  at   last,   honoured  and  lamented,   his    ashes 

would   be   laid   in   the   village    church    where   he    had 

worshipped  — 

"  Among  familiar  names  to  rest, 
And  in  tlie  places  of  his  youth." 

It  was  in  1597,  twelve  years  after  he  went  to  London, 
that  the  poet  began  to  buy  property  in  Stratford,  and  it 
was  about  eight  years  after  his  first  purchase  that  he 
finally  settled  there,  at  New  Place.  [J.  O.  Halliwell- 
Phillips  says  that  it  was  in  1609  :  There  is  a  record 
alleging  that  as  late  as  that  year  Shakespeare  still 
retained  a  residence  in  Clink  Street,  Southwark.]  This 
mansion  was  altered  by  Sir  Hugh  Clopton,  who  owned 
it  toward  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  it 
was  destroyed  by  the  Rev.  Francis  Gastrell,  in  1759. 
The  grounds,  which  have  been  reclaimed,  —  chiefly 
through  the  zeal  of  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillips, — are  laid 
out  according  to  the  model  they  are  supposed  to  have 
presented  when  Shakespeare  owned  them.  His  lawn, 
his  orchard,  and  his  garden  are  indicated ;  and  a  scion 
of  his  mulberry  is  growing  on  the  spot  where  that 
famous  tree  once  flourished.  You  can  see  a  part  of  the 
foundation  of  the  old  house.  It  was  made  of  brick  and 
timber,  it  seems  to  have  had  gables,  and  no  doubt  it 
was  fashioned  with  the  beautiful  curves  and  broken 
lines  of  the  Tudor  architecture.  They  show,  upon  the 
lawn,  a  stone  of  considerable  size,  that  surmounted  its 
door.  The  site  —  still  a  central  and  commodious  one  — 
is  on  the  corner  of  Chapel  Street  and  Chapel  Lane  ; 
and  on  the  opposite  corner  stands  now,  as  it  has  stood 
for  eight  hundred  years,  the  chapel  of  the  Holy  Cross, 
with  square,  dark  tower,  fretted  parapet,  pointed  case- 


VIII  FIRST   VIEW   OF   STRATFORD-ON-AVON  87 

ments,  and  Norman  porch  —  one  of  the  most  romantic 
and  picturesque  little  churches  in  England.  It  was  easy, 
when  musing  on  that  storied  spot,  to  fancy  Shakespeare, 
in  the  gloaming  of  a  summer  day,  strolling  on  the  lawn, 
beneath  his  elms,  and  listening  to  the  soft  and  solemn 
music  of  the  chapel  organ ;  or  to  think  of  him  as  step- 
ping forth  from  his  study,  in  the  late  and  lonesome 
hours  of  the  night,  and  pausing  to  "count  the  clock," 
or  note  the  "  exhalations  whizzing  in  the  air." 

The  funeral  train  of  Shakespeare,  on  that  dark  day 
when  it  moved  from  New  Place  to  Stratford  Church, 
had  but  a  little  way  to  go.  The  river,  surely,  must 
have  seemed  to  hush  its  murmurs,  the  trees  to  droop 
their  branches,  the  sunshine  to  grow  dim  —  as  that  sad 
procession  passed  !  His  grave  is  under  the  gray 
pavement  of  the  chancel,  near  the  altar,  and  his  wife 
and  one  of  his  daughters  are  buried  beside  him.  The 
pilgrim  who  reads  upon  the  gravestone  those  rugged 
lines  of  grievous  entreaty  and  awful  imprecation  that 
guard  the  poet's  rest  feels  no  doubt  that  he  is  listening 
to  his  living  voice  —  for  he  has  now  seen  the  enchant- 
ing beauty  of  the  place,  and  he  has  now  felt  what 
passionate  affection  it  can  inspire.  Feeling  and  not 
manner  would  naturally  have  prompted  that  abrupt, 
agonised  supplication  and  threat.  Nor  does  such  a 
pilgrim  doubt,  when  gazing  on  the  painted  bust,  above 
the  grave, — made  by  Gerard  Jonson,  stonecutter, — 
that  he  beholds  the  authentic  face  of  Shakespeare.  It 
is  not  the  heavy  face  of  the  portraits  that  represent  it. 
There  is  a  rapt,  transfigured  quality  in  it,  that  those 
copies  do  not  convey.  It  is  thoughtful,  austere,  and 
yet  benign.     Shakespeare  was  a  hazel-eyed  man,  with 


88  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

auburn  hair,  and  the  colours  that  he  wore  were  scarlet 
and  black.  Being  painted,  and  also  being  set  up  at  a 
considerable  height  on  the  church  wall,  the  bust  does 
not  disclose  what  is  sufficiently  perceptible  in  a  cast 
from  it  —  that  it  is  the  copy  of  a  mask  from  the  dead 
face.  One  of  the  cheeks  is  a  little  swollen  and  the 
tongue,  slightly  protruded,  is  caught  between  the  lips. 
The  idle  theory  that  the  poet  was  not  a  gentleman 
of  consideration  in  his  own  time  and  place  falls  utterly 
and  for  ever  from  the  mind  when  you  stand  at  his 
grave.  No  man  could  have  a  more  honourable  or 
sacred  place  of  sepulture ;  and  while  it  illustrates  the 
profound  esteem  of  the  community  in  which  he  lived  it 
testifies  to  the  religious  character  by  which  that  esteem 
was  confirmed.  "  I  commend  my  soul  into  the  hands 
of  God,  my  Creator,  hoping,  and  assuredly  believing, 
through  the  only  merits  of  Jesus  Christ,  my  Saviour,  to 
be  made  partaker  of  life  everlasting."  So  said  Shake- 
speare, in  his  last  Will,  bowing  in  humble  reverence  the 
mightiest  mind  —  as  vast  and  limitless  in  the  power  to 
comprehend  as  to  express !— that  ever  wore  the  gar- 
ments of  mortality.^ 

Once  again  there  is  a  sound  of  organ  music,  very  low 
and  soft,  in  Stratford  Church,  and  the  dim  light,  broken 

^  It  ought  perhaps  to  be  remarked  that  this  prelude  to  Shakespeare's 
Will  may  not  have  been  intended  by  him  as  a  profession  of  faith,  but  may 
have  been  signed  simply  as  a  legal  formula.  His  works  denote  a  mind  of 
high  and  broad  spiritual  convictions,  untrammelled  by  creed  or  doctrine. 
His  inclination,  probably,  was  toward  the  Roman  Catholic  church,  because 
of  the  poetry  that  is  in  it :  but  such  a  man  as  Shakespeare  would  have 
viewed  all  religious  beliefs  in  a  kindly  spirit,  and  would  have  made  no  em- 
phatic professions.  The  Will  was  executed  on  March  25,  1616.  It  covers 
three  sheets  of  paper;  it  is  not  in  Shakespeare's  hand-writing,  but  each 
sheet  bears  his  signature.     It  is  in  the  British  Museum. 


VIII 


FIRST   VIEW   OF   STRATFORD-ON-AVON 


89 


by  the  richly  stained  windows,  streams  across  the  dusky 
chancel,  filling  the  still  air  with  opal  haze  and  flooding 
those  gray  gravestones  with  its  mellow  radiance.  Not 
a  word  is  spoken  ;  but,  at  intervals,  the  rustle  of  the 
leaves  is  audible  in  a  sighing  wind.  What  visions  are 
these,  that  suddenly  fill  the  region  !  What  royal  faces 
of  monarchs,  proud  with  power,  or  pallid  with  anguish ! 
What  sweet,  imperial  women,  gleeful  with  happy  youth 
and  love,  or  wide-eyed  and  rigid  in  tearless  woe !  What 
warriors,  with  serpent  diadems,  defiant  of  death  and 
hell !  The  mournful  eyes  of  Hamlet ;  the  wild  counte- 
nance of  Lear ;  Ariel  with  his  harp,  and  Prospero  with 
his  wand !  Here  is  no  death !  All  these,  and  more, 
are  immortal  shapes ;  and  he  that  made  them  so, 
although  his  mortal  part  be  but  a  handful  of  dust  in 
yonder  crypt,  is  a  glorious  angel  beyond  the  stars. 


Distant  View  of  Stratford- 


'^^^^^^^k 

^ 

i^^^^^ 

^^g 

^^8 

^p 

W^^^^t^M^ 

^ 

^^^^^ 

^^^ 

CHAPTER  IX 

LONDON  NOOKS  AND  CORNERS 

HOSE  persons  upon  whom  the  spirit  of 
the  past  has  power  —  and  it  has  not  power 
upon  every  mind !  —  are  aware  of  the 
mysterious  charm  that  invests  certain 
familiar  spots  and  objects,  in  all  old  cities. 
London,  to  observers  of  this  class,  is  a  never-ending 
delight.  Modern  cities,  for  the  most  part,  reveal  a 
definite  and  rather  a  commonplace  design.  Their  main 
avenues  are  parallel.  Their  shorter  streets  bisect  their 
main  avenues.  They  are  diversified  with  rectangular 
squares.  Their  configuration,  in  brief,  suggests  the 
sapient,  utilitarian  forethought  of  the  land-surveyor 
and  civil  engineer.  The  ancient  British  capital,  on  the 
contrary,  is  the  expression — slowly  and  often  narrowly 
made  —  of  many  thousands  of  characters.  It  is  a  city 
that  has  happened  —  and  the  stroller  through  the  old 
part  of  it  comes  continually  upon  the  queerest  imagina- 
ble alleys,  courts,  and  nooks.  Not  far  from  Drury  Lane 
Theatre,  for  instance,  hidden  away  in  a  clump  of  dingy 
houses,   is    a   dismal   little  graveyard  —  the  same  that 

9° 


CHAP.  IX  LONDON   NOOKS   AND   CORNERS  91 

Dickens  has  chosen,  in  his  novel  of  Bleak  House,  as  the 
sepulchre  of  little  Jo's  friend,  the  first  love  of  the  unfor- 
tunate Lady  Dedlock.  It  is  a  doleful  spot,  draped  in 
the  robes  of  faded  sorrow,  and  crowded  into  the  twilight 
of  obscurity  by  the  thick-clustering  habitations  of  men.^ 
The  Cripplegate  church,  St.  Giles's,  a  less  lugubrious 
spot  and  less  difficult  of  access,  is  nevertheless  strangely 
sequestered,  so  that  it  also  affects  the  observant  eye  as 
equally  one  of  the  surprises  of  London.  I  saw  it,  for 
the  first  time,  on  a  gray,  sad  Sunday,  a  little  before 
twilight,  and  when  the  service  was  going  on  within  its 
venerable  walls.  The  footsteps  of  John  Milton  were 
sometimes  on  the  threshold  of  the  Cripplegate,  and  his 
grave  is  in  the  nave  of  that  ancient  church.  A  simple 
flat  stone  marks  that  sacred  spot,  and  many  a  heedless 
foot  tramples  over  that  hallowed  dust.  From  Golden 
Lane,  which  is  close  by,  you  can  see  the  tower  of  this 
church ;  and,  as  you  walk  from  the  place  where  Milton 
lived  to  the  place  where  his  ashes  repose,  you  seem, 
with  a  solemn,  awe-stricken  emotion,  to  be  actually 
following  in  his  funeral  train.  At  St.  Giles's  occurred 
the  marriage  of  Cromwell.^  I  remembered  —  as  I  stood 
there  and  conjured  up  that  scene  of  golden  joy  and 
hope  —  the  place  of  the  Lord  Protector's  coronation 
in  Westminster  Hall ;  the  place,  still  marked,  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  where  his  body  was  buried  ;  and  old 
Temple  Bar,  on  which  (if  not  on  Westminster  Hall)  his 

1  That  place  has  been  renovated  and  is  no  longer  a  disgrace. 

"The  church  of  St.  Giles  was  built  in  1117  by  Queen  Maud.  It  was 
demolished  in  1623  and  rebuilt  in  1731.  The  tomb  of  Richard  Pendrell, 
who  saved  Charles  the  Second,  after  Worcester  fight,  in  1 651,  is  in  the 
churchyard. 


92  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

mutilated  corse  was  finally  exposed  to  the  blind  rage  of 
the  fickle  populace.  A  little  time  —  a  very  little  time 
—  serves  to  gather  up  equally  the  happiness  and  the 
anguish,  the  conquest  and  the  defeat,  the  greatness  and 
the  littleness  of  human  life,  and  to  cover  them  all  with 
silence. 

But  not  always  with  oblivion.  Those  quaint  churches, 
and  many  other  mouldering  relics  of  the  past,  in  Lon- 
don, are  haunted  with  associations  that  never  can  perish 
out  of  remembrance.  In  fact  the  whole  of  the  old  city 
impresses  you  as  densely  invested  with  an  atmosphere 
of  human  experience,  dark,  sad,  and  lamentable.  Walk- 
ing, alone,  in  ancient  quarters  of  it,  after  midnight,  I 
was  aware  of  the  oppressive  sense  of  tragedies  that 
have  been  acted  and  misery  that  has  been  endured  in 
its  dusky  streets  and  melancholy  houses.  They  do  not 
err  who  say  that  the  spiritual  life  of  man  leaves  its 
influence  in  the  physical  objects  by  which  he  is  sur- 
rounded. Night-walks  in  London  will  teach  you  that, 
if  they  teach  you  nothing  else.  I  went  more  than  once 
into  Brooke  Street,  Holborn,  and  traced  the  desolate 
footsteps  of  poor  Thomas  Chatterton  to  the  scene  of  his 
self-murder  and  agonised,  pathetic,  deplorable  death. 
It  is  more  than  a  century  (1770),  since  that  "marvellous 
boy "  was  driven  to  suicide  by  neglect,  hunger,  and 
despair.  They  are  tearing  down  the  houses  on  one 
side  of  Brooke  Street  now  (1877);  it  is  doubtful  which 
house  was  No.  4,  in  the  attic  of  which  Chatterton  died, 
and  doubtful  whether  it  remains :  his  grave  —  a  pauper's 
grave,  that  was  made  in  a  workhouse  burial-ground,  in 
Shoe  Lane,  long  since  obliterated  —  is  unknown  ;  but  his 
presence    hovers  about   that   region ;    his  strange   and 


IX  LONDON  NOOKS  AND  CORNERS  93 

touching  story  tinges  its  commonness  with  the  mystical 
moonlight  of  romance ;  and  his  name  is  blended  with  it 
for  ever.  On  another  night  I  walked  from  St.  James's 
Palace  to  Whitehall  (the  York  Place  of  Cardinal  Wol- 
sey),  and  viewed  the  ground  that  Charles  the  P^irst  must 
have  traversed,  on  his  way  to  the  scaffold.  The  story 
of  the  slaughter  of  that  king,  always  sorrowful  to 
remember,  is  very  grievous  to  consider,  when  you 
realise,  upon  the  actual  scene  of  his  ordeal  and  death, 
his  exalted  fortitude  and  his  bitter  agony.  It  seemed 
as  if  I  could  almost  hear  his  voice,  as  it  sounded  on 
that  fateful  morning,  asking  that  his  body  might  be 
more  warmly  clad,  lest,  in  the  cold  January  air,  he 
should  shiver,  and  so,  before  the  eyes  of  his  enemies, 
should  seem  to  be  trembling  with  fear.  The  Puritans, 
having  brought  that  poor  man  to  the  place  of  execution, 
kept  him  in  suspense  from  early  morning  till  after  two 
o'clock  in  the  day,  while  they  debated  over  a  proposition 
to  spare  his  life  —  upon  any  condition  they  might  choose 
to  make  —  that  had  been  sent  to  them  by  his  son,  Prince 
Charles.  Old  persons  were  alive  in  London,  not  very 
long  ago,  who  remembered  having  seen,  in  their  child- 
hood, the  window,  in  the  end  of  the  Whitehall  Banquet 
House — now  a  Chapel  Royal  and  all  that  remains  of 
the  ancient  palace  —  through  which  the  doomed  mon- 
arch walked  forth  to  the  block.  It  was  long  ago  walled 
up,  and  the  palace  has  undergone  much  alteration  since 
the  days  of  the  Stuarts.  In  the  rear  of  Whitehall 
stands  a  bronze  statue  of  James  the  Second,  by  Roubiliac 
(whose  marbles  are  numerous,  in  the  Abbey  and  else- 
where in  London,  and  whose  grave  is  in  the  church  of 
St.  Martin),  one  of   the  most   graceful  works  of   that 


94  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

spirited  sculptor.  The  figure  is  finely  modelled.  The 
face  is  dejected  and  full  of  reproach.  The  right  hand 
points,  with  a  truncheon,  toward  the  earth.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  mistake  the  ruminant,  melancholy  meaning  of 
this  memorial ;  and  equally  it  is  impossible  to  walk 
without  both  thought  that  instructs  and  emotion  that 
elevates  through  a  city  which  thus  abounds  with  traces 
of  momentous  incident  and  representative  experience. 

The  literary  pilgrim  in  London  has  this  double 
advantage  —  that  while  he  communes  with  the  past  he 
may  enjoy  in  the  present.  Yesterday  and  to-day  are 
commingled  here,  in  a  way  that  is  almost  ludicrous. 
When  you  turn  from  Roubiliac's  statue  of  James  your 
eyes  rest  upon  the  retired  house  of  Disraeli.  If  you 
walk  in  Whitehall,  toward  the  Palace  of  Westminster, 
some  friend  may  chance  to  tell  you  how  the  great  Duke 
of  Wellington  walked  there,  in  the  feebleness  of  his 
age,  from  the  Horse  Guards  to  the  House  of  Lords ; 
and  with  what  pleased  complacency  the  old  warrior 
used  to  boast  of  his  skill  in  threading  a  crowded  thor- 
oughfare, —  unaware  that  the  police,  acting  by  particu- 
lar command,  protected  his  revered  person  from  errant 
cabs  and  pushing  pedestrians.  As  I  strolled  one  day 
past  Lambeth  Palace  it  happened  that  the  palace  gates 
were  suddenly  unclosed  and  that  His  Grace  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  came  forth,  on  horseback,  from 
that  episcopal  residence,  and  ambled  away  towards  the 
House  of  Lords.  It  is  the  same  arched  portal  through 
which,  in  other  days,  passed  out  the  stately  train  of 
Wolsey.  It  is  the  same  towered  palace  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  looked  upon  as  her  barge  swept  past,  on  its 
watery  track  to   Richmond.     It  is  for  ever  associated 


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IX  LONDON  NOOKS  AND  CORNERS  95 

with  the  memory  of  Thomas  Cromwell.  In  the  church, 
hard  by,  rest  the  ashes  of  men  distinguished  in  the  most 
diverse  directions — Jackson,  the  clown;  and  Tenison, 
the  archbishop,  the  "  honest,  prudent,  laborious,  and 
benevolent  "  primate  of  William  the  Third,  who  was 
thought  worthy  to  succeed  in  office  the  illustrious 
Tillotson.  The  cure  of  souls  is  sought  here  with  just 
as  vigorous  energy  as  when  Tillotson  wooed  by  his 
goodness  and  charmed  by  his  winning  eloquence.  Not 
a  great  distance  from  this  spot  you  come  upon  the 
college  at  Dulwich  that  Edward  AUeyn  founded,  in  the 
time  of  Shakespeare,  and  that  still  subsists  upon  "the  old 
actor's  endowment.  It  is  said  that  Alleyn — who  was 
a  man  of  fortune,  and  whom  a  contemporary  epigram 
styles  the  best  actor  of  his  day  —  gained  the  most  of 
his  money  by  the  exhibition  of  bears.  But,  howsoever 
gained,  he  made  a  good  use  of  it.  His  tomb  is  in  the 
centre  of  the  college.  Here  may  be  seen  one  of  the 
best  picture-galleries  in  England.  One  of  the  cherished 
paintings  in  that  collection  is  the  famous  portrait,  by 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  of  Mrs.  Siddons  as  the  Tragic 
Muse  —  remarkable  for  its  colour,  and  splendidly  expos- 
itive of  the  boldness  of  feature,  brilliancy  of  counte- 
nance, and  stately  grace  of  posture  for  which  its  original 
was  distinguished.  Another  represents  two  renowned 
beauties  of  their  day — the  Linley  sisters — who  became 
Mrs.  Sheridan  and  Mrs.  Tickel.  You  do  not  wonder, 
as  you  look  on  those  fair  faces,  sparkling  with  health, 
arch  with  merriment,  lambent  with  sensibility,  and  soft 
with  goodness  and  feeling,  that  Sheridan  should  have 
fought  duels  for  such  a  prize  as  the  lady  of  his  love ;  or 
that  those  fascinating  creatures,  favoured  alike  by  the 


96  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

Graces  and  the  Muse,  should  in  their  gentle  lives  have 
been,  "like  Juno's  swans,  coupled  and  inseparable." 
Mary,  Mrs.  Tickel,  died  first;  and  Moore,  in  his  Life  of 
Sheridan,  has  preserved  a  lament  for  her,  written  by 
Eliza,  Mrs.  Sheridan,  which  —  for  deep,  true  sorrow 
and  melodious  eloquence  — is  worthy  to  be  named  with 
Thomas  Tickel's  monody  on  Addison  or  Cowper's 
memorial  lines  on  his  mother's  picture  :  — 

"  Shall  all  the  wisdom  of  the  world  combined 
Erase  thy  image,  Mary,  from  my  mind. 
Or  bid  me  hope  from  others  to  receive 
.      The  fond  affection  thou  alone  couldst  give  ? 
Ah  no,  my  best  beloved,  thou  still  shalt  be 
My  friend,  my  sister,  all  the  world  to  me  !  " 

Precious  also  among  the  gems  of  the  Dulwich  gallery 
are  certain  excellent  specimens  of  the  gentle,  dreamy 
style  of  Murillo.  The  pilgrim  passes  on,  by  a  short 
drive,  to  Sydenham,  and  dines  at  the  Crystal  Palace  — 
and  still  he  finds  the  faces  of  the  past  and  the  present 
confronted,  in  a  manner  that  is  almost  comic.  Nothing 
could  be  more  aptly  representative  of  the  practical,  osten- 
tatious phase  of  the  spirit  of  to-day  than  is  this  enor- 
mous, opulent,  and  glittering  "  palace  made  of  windows." 
Yet  I  saw  there  the  carriage  in  which  Napoleon  Buona- 
parte used  to  drive,  at  St.  Helena  —  a  vehicle  as  sombre 
and  ghastly  as  were  the  broken  fortunes  of  its  death- 
stricken  master ;  and,  sitting  at  a  table  close  by,  I  saw 
the  son  of  Buonaparte's  fiery  champion,  William 
Hazlitt. 

It  was  a  gray  and  misty  evening.  The  plains  below 
the  palace  terraces  were  veiled  in  shadow,  through 
which,  here   and  there,   twinkled   the    lights  of    some 


iSHH    li 


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LONDON   NOOKS   AND   CORNERS 


97 


peaceful  villa.  Far  away  the  spires  and  domes  of  Lon- 
don, dimly  seen,  pierced  the  city's  nightly  pall  of  smoke. 
It  was  a  dream  too  sweet  to  last.  It  ended  when  all 
the  illuminations  were  burnt  out ;  when  the  myriads  of 
red  and  green  and  yellow  stars  had  fallen ;  and  all  the 
silver  fountains  had  ceased  to  play. 


V->';< 


The  Crown  Inn,  Dulwich. 


CHAPTER   X 


RELICS    OF    LORD    BYRON 


HE  Byron  Memorial  Loan  Collection,  that 
was  displayed  at  the  Albert  Memorial 
Hall,  for  a  short  time  in  the  summer  of 
1877,  did  not  attract  much  attention:  yet 
it  was  a  vastly  impressive  show  of  relics. 
The  catalogue  names  seventy-four  objects,  together  with 
thirty-nine  designs  for  a  monument  to  Byron.  The 
design  that  has  been  chosen  presents  a  seated  figure,  of 
the  young  sailor-boy  type.  The  right  hand  supports 
the  chin;  the  left,  resting  on  the  left  knee,  holds  an 
open  book  and  a  pencil.  The  dress  consists  of  a  loose 
shirt,  open  at  the  throat  and  on  the  bosom,  a  flowing 
neckcloth,  and  wide,  marine  trousers.  Byron's  dog, 
Boatswain — -commemorated  in  the  well-known  misan- 
thropic epitaph  — 

"  To  mark  a  friencrs  remains  these  stones  arise, 
I  never  knew  but  one,  and  here  he  lies  "  — 

is  shown,  in  effigy,  at  the  poet's  feet.     The  treatment 
of  the  subject,  in  this  model,  certainly  deserves  to   be 

98 


CHAP.  X  RELICS  OF  LORD   BYRON  99 

called  free,  but  the  general  effect  of  the  work  is  finical. 
The  statue  will  probably  be  popular ;  but  it  will  give  no 
adequate  idea  of  the  man.  Byron  was  both  massive 
and  intense;  and  this  image  is  no  more  than  the  usual 
hero  of  nautical  romance.  (It  was  dedicated  in  May, 
1880,  and  it  stands  in  Hamilton  Gardens,  near  Hyde 
Park  Corner,  London.) 

It  was  the  treasure  of  relics,  however,  and  not  the 
statuary,  that  more  attracted  notice.  The  relics  were 
exhibited  in  three  glass  cases,  exclusive  of  large  portraits. 
It  is  impossible  to  make  the  reader  —  supposing  him  to 
revere  this  great  poet's  genius  and  to  care  for  his  mem- 
ory—  feel  the  thrill  of  emotion  that  was  aroused  by 
actual  sight,  and  almost  actual  touch,  of  objects  so  inti- 
mately associated  with  the  living  Byron.  Five  pieces 
of  his  hair  were  shown,  one  of  which  was  cut  off,  after 
his  death,  by  Captain  Trelawny  —  the  remarkable  gentle- 
man who  says  that  he  uncovered  the  legs  of  the  corse, 
in  order  to  ascertain  the  nature  and  extent  of  their  de- 
formity. All  those  locks  of  hair  are  faded  and  all  pre- 
sent a  mixture  of  gray  and  auburn.  Byron's  hair  was 
not,  seemingly,  of  a  fine  texture,  and  it  turned  gray  early 
in  life.  Those  tresses  were  lent  to  the  exhibition  by 
Lady  Dorchester,  John  Murray,  H.  M.  Robinson,  D.D., 
and  E.  J.  Trelawny.  A  strangely  interesting  memorial 
was  a  little  locket  of  plain  gold,  shaped  like  a  heart,  that 
Byron  habitually  wore.  Near  to  this  was  the  crucifix 
found  in  his  bed  at  Missolonghi,  after  his  death.  It  is 
about  ten  inches  long  and  is  made  of  ebony.  A  small 
bronze  figure  of  Christ  is  displayed  upon  it,  and  at  the 
feet  of  the  figure  are  cross-bones  and  a  skull,  of  the 
same  metal.     A  glass  beaker,  that   Byron  gave  to   his 


100  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

butler,  in  1815,  attracted  attention  by  its  portly  size  and, 
to  the  profane  fancy,  hinted  that  his  lordship  had  formed 
a  liberal  estimate  of  that  butler's  powers  of  suction. 
Four  articles  of  head-gear  occupied  a  prominent  place 
in  one  of  the  cabinets.  Two  are  helmets  that  Byron 
wore  when  he  was  in  Greece,  in  1824 — and  very 
queer  must  have  been  his  appearance  when  he  wore 
them.  One  is  light  blue,  the  other  dark  green ;  both 
are  faded ;  both  are  fierce  with  brass  ornaments  and 
barbaric  with  brass  scales  like  those  of  a  snake.  A 
comelier  object  is  the  poet's  "  boarding-cap  "  —  a  leather 
slouch,  turned  up  with  green  velvet  and  studded  with 
brass  nails.  Many  small  articles  of  Byron's  property 
were  scattered  through  the  cases.  A  corpulent  little 
silver  watch,  with  Arabic  numerals  upon  its  face,  and  a 
meerschaum  pipe,  not  much  coloured,  were  among 
them.  The  cap  that  he  sometimes  wore,  during  the 
last  years  of  his  life,  —  the  one  depicted  in  a  well-known 
sketch  of  him  by  Count  D'Orsay,  —  was  exhibited,  and 
so  was  D'Orsay's  portrait.  The  cap  is  of  green  velvet, 
not  much  tarnished,  and  is  encircled  by  a  gold  band  and 
faced  by  an  ugly  visor.  The  face  in  the  sketch  is  super- 
cilious and  defiant.  A  better,  and  obviously  truer 
sketch  is  that  made  by  Cattcrmole,  which  also  was  in 
this  exhibition.  Strength  in  despair  and  a  dauntless 
spirit  that  shines  through  the  ravages  of  irremediable 
suffering  are  the  qualities  of  this  portrait;  and  they 
make  it  marvellously  effective.  Thorwaldsen's  fine  bust 
of  Byron,  made  for  Hobhouse,  and  also  the  celebrated 
Phillips  portrait  —  that  Scott  said  was  the  best  likeness 
of  Byron  ever  painted  —  occupied  places  in  this  group. 
The  copy  of  the  New  Testament  that  Lady  Byron  gave 


X  RELICS   nV    LORD    HVRON  101 

to  her  husband,  and  that  he,  in  turn,  presented  to  Lady 
CaroHne  Lamb,  was  there,  and  is  a  pocket  volume, 
bound  in  black  leather,  with  the  inscription,  "  From  a 
sincere  and  anxious  friend,"  written  in  a  stiff,  formal 
hand,  across  the  fly-leaf.  A  gold  ring  that  the  poet 
constantly  wore,  and  the  collar  of  his  dog  Boatswain  —  a 
discoloured  band  of  brass,  with  sharply  jagged  edges 
—  should  also  be  named  as  among  the  most  interesting 
of  the  relics. 

But  the  most  remarkable  objects  of  all  were  the 
manuscripts.  These  comprise  the  original  draft  of  the 
third  canto  of  "  Childe  Harold,"  written  on  odd  bits  of 
paper,  during  Byron's  journey  from  London  to  Venice, 
in  1816;  the  first  draft  of  the  fourth  canto,  together 
with  a  clean  copy  of  it ;  the  notes  to  "  Marino  Faliero  "  ; 
the  concluding  stage  directions  —  much  scrawled  and 
blotted  —  in  "  Heaven  and  Earth  "  ;  a  document  con- 
cerning the  poet's  matrimonial  trouble  ;  and  about  fifteen 
of  his  letters.  The  passages  seen  are  those  beginning 
"  Since  my  young  days  of  passion,  joy,  or  pain  "  ;  "  To 
bear  unhurt  what  time  cannot  abate "  ;  and  in  canto 
fourth  the  stanzas  118  to  129  inclusive.  The  writing  is 
free  and  strong,  and  it  still  remains  legible  although  the 
paper  is  yellow  with  age.  Altogether  those  relics  were 
touchingly  significant  of  the  strange,  dark,  sad  career  of 
a  wonderful  man.  Yet,  as  already  said,  they  attracted 
but  little  notice.  The  memory  of  Byron  seems  darkened, 
as  with  the  taint  of  lunacy.  "  He  did  strange  things," 
one  Englishman  said  to  me  ;  "  and  there  was  something 
queer  about  him."  The  London  house  in  which  he  was 
born,  in  Holies  Street,  Cavendish  Square,  is  marked 
with  a  tablet,  —  according  to  a  custom  instituted  by  a 


102  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  Chap. 

society  of  arts.  (It  was  torn  down  in  1890  and  its  site  is 
now  occupied  by  a  shop,  bearing  the  name  of  John  Lewis 
&  Co.)  Two  houses  in  which  he  lived,  No.  8  St.  James 
Street,  near  the  old  palace,  and  No.  139  Piccadilly, 
are  not  marked.  The  house  of  his  birth  was  occupied 
in  1877  by  a  descendant  of  Elizabeth  Fry,  the  philan- 
thropist. 

The  custom  of  marking  the  houses  associated  with 
great  names  is  obviously  a  good  one,  and  it  ought  to 
be  adopted  in  other  countries.  Two  buildings,  one  in 
Westminster  and  one  in  the  grounds  of  the  South  Ken- 
sington Museum,  bear  the  name  of  Franklin  ;  and  I 
also  saw  memorial  tablets  to  Dryden  and  Burke  in 
Gerrard  Street,  to  Dryden  in  Fetter  Lane,  to  Mrs. 
Siddons  in  Baker  Street,  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  and 
to  Hogarth  in  Leicester  Square,  to  Garrick  in  the  Adel- 
phi  Terrace,  to  Louis  Napoleon,  and  to  many  other 
renowned  individuals.  The  room  that  Sir  Joshua  occu- 
pied as  a  studio  is  now  an  auction  mart.  The  stone 
stairs  leading  up  to  it  are  much  worn,  but  they  remain 
as  they  were  when, -it  may  be  imagined,  Burke,  Johnson, 
Goldsmith,  Langton,  Beauclerk,  and  Boswell  walked 
there,  on  many  a  festive  night  in  the  old  times. 

It  is  a  breezy,  slate-coloured  evening  in  July.  I  look 
from  the  window  of  a  London  house  that  fronts  a  spa- 
cious park.  Those  great  elms,  which  in  their  wealth 
of  foliage  and  irregular  and  pompous  expanse  of  limb 
are  finer  than  all  other  trees  of  their  class,  fill  the  pros- 
pect, and  nod  and  murmur  in  the  wind.  Through  a 
rift  in  their  heavy-laden  boughs  is  visible  a  long  vista 
of  green  field,  in  which  many  children  are  at  play. 
Their  laughter  and  the  rustle  of  leaves,  with  now  and 


RELICS   OF   LORD    BYRON 


103 


then  the  click  of  a  horse's  hoofs  upon  the  road  near  by, 
make  up  the  music  of  this  hallowed  hour.  The  sky  is 
a  little  overcast  but  not  gloomy.  As  I  muse  upon  this 
delicious  scene  the  darkness  slowly  gathers,  the  stars 
come  out,  and  presently  the  moon  rises,  and  blanches 
the  meadow  with  silver  light.  Such  has  been  the 
English  summer,  with  scarce  a  hint  of  either  heat  or 
storm. 


®ri£l\3q^ 


CHAPTER    XI 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 


T  is  strange  that  the  life  of  the  past,  in 
its  unfamiliar  remains  and  fading  traces, 
should  so  far  surpass  the  life  of  the  pres- 
ent, in  impressive  force  and  influence. 
Human  characteristics,  although  mani- 
fested under  widely  different  conditions,  were  the  same 
in  old  times  that  they  are  now.  It  is  not  in  them, 
surely,  that  we  are  to  seek  for  the  mysterious  charm 
that  hallows  ancient  objects  and  the  historical  antiquities 
of  the  world.  There  is  many  a  venerable,  weather- 
stained  church  in  London,  at  sight  of  which  your  steps 
falter  and  your  thoughts  take  a  wistful,  melancholy 
turn  —  though  then  you  may  not  know  either  who  built 
it,  or  who  has  worshipped  in  it,  or  what  dust  of  the 
dead  is  mouldering  in  its  vaults.  The  spirit  which  thus 
instantly  possesses  and  controls  you  is  not  one  of  asso- 
ciation, but  is  inherent  in  the  place.  Time's  shadow 
on  the  works  of  man,  like  moonlight  on  a  landscape, 
gives  only  graces  to  the  view  —  tingeing  them,  the 
while,  with  sombre  sheen  —  and  leaves  all  blemishes  in 

104 


Westjnijisier  Abbey,  from  the   Triforinm. 


106  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  xi 

darkness.  This  may  suggest  the  reason  that  relics  of 
bygone  years  so  sadly  please  and  strangely  awe  us,  in 
the  passing  moment ;  or  it  may  be  that  we  involuntarily 
contrast  their  apparent  permanence  with  our  own  eva- 
nescent mortality,  and  so  are  dejected  with  a  sentiment 
of  dazed  helplessness  and  solemn  grief.  This  sentiment 
it  is  —  allied  to  bereaved  love  and  a  natural  wish  for 
remembrance  after  death  —  that  has  filled  Westminster 
Abbey,  and  many  another  holy  mausoleum,  with  sculp- 
tured memorials  of  the  departed ;  and  this,  perhaps,  is 
the  subtle  power  that  makes  us  linger  beside  them, 
"with  thoughts  beyond  the  reaches  of  our  souls." 

When  the  gentle  angler  Izaak  Walton  went  into 
Westminster  Abbey  to  visit  the  grave  of  Casaubon,  he 
scratched  his  initials  on  the  scholar's  monument,  where 
the  record,  "  I.  W.,  1658,"  may  still  be  read  by  the 
stroller  in  Poets'  Corner.  One  might  well  wish  to  follow 
that  example,  and  even  thus  to  associate  his  name  with 
the  great  cathedral.  And  not  in  pride  but  in  humble 
reverence  !  Here  if  anywhere  on  earth  self-assertion 
is  rebuked  and  human  eminence  set  at  nought.  Among 
all  the  impressions  that  crowd  upon  the  mind  in  this 
wonderful  place  that  which  oftenest  recurs  and  longest 
remains  is  the  impression  of  man's  individual  insignifi- 
cance. This  is  salutary,  but  it  is  also  dark.  There 
can  be  no  enjoyment  of  the  Abbey  till,  after  much 
communion  with  the  spirit  of  the  place,  your  soul  is 
soothed  by  its  beauty  rather  than  overwhelmed  by  its 
majesty,  and  your  mind  ceases  from  the  vain  effort  to 
grasp  and  interpret  its  tremendous  meaning.  You  can- 
not long  endure,  and  you  never  can  express,  the  sense 
of  grandeur  that  is  inspired  by  Westminster  Abbey; 


2 

I 


108  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

but,  when  at  length  its  shrines  and  tombs  and  statues 
become  familiar,  when  its  chapels,  aisles,  arches,  and 
cloisters  are  grown  companionable,  and  you  can  stroll 
and  dream  undismayed  "  through  rows  of  warriors  and 
through  walks  of  kings,"  there  is  no  limit  to  the  pensive 
memories  they  awaken  and  the  poetic  fancies  they 
prompt.  In  this  church  are  buried,  among  generations 
of  their  nobles  and  courtiers,  fourteen  monarchs  of 
England  —  beginning  with  the  Saxon  Sebert  and  end- 
ing with  George  the  Second.  Fourteen  queens  rest 
here,  and  many  children  of  the  royal  blood  who  never 
came  to  the  throne.  Here,  confronted  in  a  haughty 
rivalry  of  solemn  pomp,  rise  the  equal  tombs  of  Eliza- 
beth Tudor  and  Mary  Stuart.  Queen  Eleanor's  dust 
is  here,  and  here,  too,  is  the  dust  of  the  grim  Queen 
Mary.  In  one  little  chapel  you  may  pace,  with  but 
half  a  dozen  steps,  across  the  graves  of  Charles  the 
Second,  William  and  Mary,  and  Queen  Anne  and  her 
consort  Prince  George.  At  the  tomb  of  Henry  the 
Fifth  you  may  see  the  helmet,  shield,  and  saddle  that 
were  worn  by  the  valiant  young  king  at  Agincourt ; 
and  close  by — on  the  tomb  of  Margaret  Woodeville, 
daughter  of  Edward  the  Fourth  —  the  sword  and  shield 
that  were  borne,  in  royal  state,  before  the  great  Edward 
the  Third,  five  hundred  years  ago.  The  princes  who 
are  said  to  have  been  murdered  in  the  Tower  are  com- 
memorated here  by  an  altar,  set  up  by  Charles  the 
Second,  whereon  the  inscription  —  blandly  and  almost 
humorously  oblivious  of  the  incident  of  Cromwell  — 
states  that  it  was  erected  in  the  thirtieth  year  of 
Charles's  reign.  Richard  the  Second,  deposed  and 
assassinated,  is  here  entombed ;  and  within  a  few  feet 


XI  WESTMINSTER   ABBEY  109 

of  him  are  the  relics  of  his  uncle,  the  able  and  powerful 
Duke  of  Gloster,  treacherously  ensnared  and  betrayed 
to  death.  Here  also,  huge,  rough,  and  gray,  is  the 
stone  sarcophagus  of  Edward  the  First,  which,  when 
opened,  in  1771,  disclosed  the  skeleton  of  departed 
majesty,  still  perfect,  wearing  robes  of  gold  tissue  and 
crimson  velvet,  and  having  a  crown  on  the  head  and  a 
sceptre  in  the  hand.  So  sleep,  in  jewelled  darkness 
and  gaudy  decay,  what  once  were  monarchs !  And  all 
around  are  great  lords,  holy  prelates,  famous  statesmen, 
renowned  soldiers,  and  illustrious  poets.  Burleigh,  Pitt, 
Fox,  Burke,  Canning,  Newton,  Barrow,  Wilberforce  — 
names  forever  glorious !  —  are  here  enshrined  in  the 
grandest  sepulchre  on  earth. 

The  interments  that  have  been  effected  in  and  around 
the  Abbey  since  the  remote  age  of  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor must  number  thousands ;  but  only  about  six 
hundred  are  named  in  the  guide-books.  In  the  south 
transept,  which  is  Poets'  Corner,  rest  Chaucer,  Spenser, 
Drayton,  Cowley,  Dryden,  Beaumont,  Davenant,  Prior, 
Gay,  Congreve,  Rowe,  Dr.  Johnson,  Campbell,  Macau- 
lay,  and  Dickens.  Memorials  to  many  other  poets  and 
writers  have  been  ranged  on  the  adjacent  walls  and 
pillars ;  but  these  are  among  the  authors  that  were 
actually  buried  in  this  place.  Ben  Jonson  is  not  here, 
but  —  in  an  upright  posture,  it  is  said  —  under  the 
north  aisle  of  the  Abbey ;  Addison  is  in  the  chapel  of 
Henry  the  Seventh,  at  the  foot  of  the  monument  of 
Charles  Montague,  the  great  Earl  of  Halifax ;  and 
Bulwer  is  in  the  chapel  of  St.  Edmund.  Garrick, 
Sheridan,  Henderson,  Cumberland,  Handel,  Parr,  Sir 
Archibald  Campbell,  and  the  once  so  mighty  Duke  of 


110 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


Argyle  are  almost  side  by  side  ;  while  in  St.  Edward's 
chapel  sleep  Anne  of  Cleves,  the  divorced  wife  of 
Henry  the  Eighth,  and  Anne  Neville,  queen  of  Rich- 


.c^^^w/i/:}h^^^^^^. 


Chapel  of  Edward  the  Confessor. 

ard  the  Third.  Betterton  and  Spranger  Barry  are  in 
the  cloisters  —  where  may  be  read,  in  four  little  words, 
the  most  touching  epitaph  in  the  Abbey  :  "  Jane  Lister 
—  dear  child."  There  are  no  monuments  to  either 
Byron,  Shelley,  Swift,  Pope,  Bolingbroke,  Keats,  Cow- 


XI  WESTMINSTER   ABBEY  111 

per,  Moore,  or  Young ;  but  Mason  and  Shadwcll  are 
commemorated ;  and  Barton  Booth  is  splendidly  in- 
urned ;  while  hard  by,  in  the  cloisters,  a  place  was 
found  for  Mrs.  Gibber,  Tom  Brown,  Anne  Bracegirdle, 
Anne  Oldfield,  and  Aphra  Behn.  The  destinies  have 
not  always  been  stringently  fastidious  as  to  the  admis- 
sion of  lodgers  to  this  sacred  ground.  The  pilgrim  is 
startled  by  some  of  the  names  that  he  finds  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  and  pained  by  reflection  on  the  absence 
of  some  that  he  will  seek  in  vain.  Yet  he  will  not  fail 
to  moralise,  as  he  strolls  in  Poets'  Corner,  upon  the 
inexorable  justice  with  which  time  repudiates  fictitious 
reputations  and  twines  the  laurel  on  only  the  worthiest 
brows.  In  well-nigh  five  hundred  years  of  English 
literature  there  have  lived  only  about  a  hundred  and 
ten  poets  whose  names  survive  in  any  needed  chronicle  ; 
and  not  all  of  those  possess  life  outside  of  the  library. 
To  muse  over  the  literary  memorials  in  the  Abbey  is 
also  to  think  upon  the  seeming  caprice  of  chance  with 
which  the  graves  of  the  British  poets  have  been 
scattered  far  and  wide  throughout  the  land.  Gower, 
Fletcher,  and  Massinger  (to  name  but  a  few  of  them) 
rest  in  Southwark ;  Sydney  and  Donne  in  St.  Paul's 
cathedral ;  More  (his  head,  that  is,  while  his  body 
moulders  in  the  Tower  chapel)  at  Canterbury  ;  Drum- 
mond  in  Lasswade  church ;  Dorset  at  Withyham,  in 
Sussex ;  Waller  at  Beaconsfield ;  Wither,  unmarked,  in 
the  church  of  the  Savoy ;  Milton  in  the  church  of  the 
Gripplegate  —  where  his  relics,  it  is  said,  were  despoiled; 
Swift  at  Dublin,  in  St.  Patrick's  cathedral ;  Young  at 
Welwyn ;  Pope  at  Twickenham ;  Thomson  at  Rich- 
mond ;  Gray  at  Stoke-Pogis  ;  Watts  in  Bunhill-Fields ; 


TAe  Poets'  Corner. 


CHAi'.  XI  WESTMINSTER   ABBEY  113 

Collins  in  an  obscure  little  church  at  Chichester  — 
though  his  name  is  commemorated  by  a  tablet  in  Chi- 
chester cathedral ;  Cowper  in  Dereham  church  ;  Gold- 
smith in  the  garden  of  the  Temple  ;  Savage  at  Bristol ; 
Burns  at  Dumfries ;  Rogers  at  Hornsey ;  Crabbe  at 
Trowbridge  ;  Scott  in  Dryburgh  abbey ;  Coleridge  at 
Highgate ;  Byron  in  Hucknall  church,  near  Notting- 
ham ;  Moore  at  Bromham  ;  Montgomery  at  Shefifield ; 
Heber  at  Calcutta ;  Southey  in  Crossthwaite  church- 
yard, near  Keswick;  Wordsworth  and  Hartley  Cole- 
ridge side  by  side  in  the  churchyard  of  Grasmere  ;  and 
Clough  at  Florence  —  whose  lovely  words  may  here 
speak  for  all  of  them  — 

"  One  port,  methought,  alike  they  sought, 
One  purpose  held,  where'er  they  fare  : 
O  bounding  breeze,  O  rushing  seas, 
At  last,  at  last,  unite  them  there  ! " 

But  it  is  not  alone  in  the  great  Abbey  that  the 
rambler  in  London  is  impressed  by  poetic  antiquity  and 
touching  historic  association  —  always  presuming  that 
he  has  been  a  reader  of  English  literature  and  that  his 
reading  has  sunk  into  his  mind.  Little  things,  equally 
with  great  ones,  commingled  in  a  medley,  luxuriant  and 
delicious,  so  people  the  memory  of  such  a  pilgrim  that 
all  his  walks  will  be  haunted.  The  London  of  to-day, 
to  be  sure  (as  may  be  seen  in  Macaulay's  famous  third 
chapter,  and  in  Scott's  Fortunes  of  Nigel),  is  very  little 
like  even  the  London  of  Charles  the  Second,  when  the 
great  fire  had  destroyed  eighty-nine  churches  and  thir- 
teen thousand  houses,  and  when  what  is  now  Regent 
Street  was  a  rural  solitude  in  which  sportsmen  some- 
times shot  the  woodcock.     Yet,  though   much  of   the 


The  North  Ambulatory.      jJ\W(  \^'|cf? 


CHAP.  XI  WESTMINSTER   ABBEY  115 

old  capital  has  vanished  and  more  of  it  has  been 
changed,  many  remnants  of  its  historic  past  exist,  and 
many  of  its  streets  and  houses  are  fraught  with  a 
delightful,  romantic  interest.  It  is  not  forgotten  that 
sometimes  the  charm  resides  in  the  eyes  that  see,  quite 
as  much  as  in  the  object  that  is  seen.  The  storied 
spots  of  London  may  not  be  appreciable  by  all  who 
look  upon  them  every  day.  The  cab-drivers  in  the 
region  of  Kensington  Palace  Road  may  neither  regard, 
nor  even  notice,  the  house  in  which  Thackeray  lived 
and  died.  The  shop-keepers  of  old  Bond  Street  may, 
perhaps,  neither  care  nor  know  that  in  this  famous 
avenue  was  enacted  the  woful  death-scene  of  Laurence 
Sterne.  The  Bow  Street  runners  are  quite  unlikely  to 
think  of  Will's  Coffee  House,  and  Dryden,  or  Button's, 
and  Addison,  as  they  pass  the  sites  of  those  vanished 
haunts  of  wit  and  revelry  in  the  days  of  Queen  Anne. 
The  fashionable  lounger  through  Berkeley  Square, 
when  perchance  he  pauses  at  the  corner  of  Bruton 
Street,  will  not  discern  Colley  Gibber,  in  wig  and 
ruffles,  standing  at  the  parlour  window  and  drumming 
with  his  hands  on  the  frame.  The  casual  passenger, 
halting  at  the  Tavistock,  will  not  remember  that  this 
was  once  Macklin's  Ordinary,  and  so  conjure  up  the 
iron  visage  and  ferocious  aspect  of  the  first  great 
Shylock  of  the  British  stage,  formally  obsequious  to 
his  guests,  or  striving  to  edify  them,  despite  the  ban- 
ter of  the  volatile  Foote,  with  discourse  upon  "  the 
Causes  of  Duelling  in  Ireland."  The  Barbican  does 
not  to  every  one  summon  the  austere  memory  of  Mil- 
ton ;  nor  Holborn  raise  the  melancholy  shade  of  Chat- 
terton ;    nor  Tower   Hill  arouse  the  gloomy  ghost  of 


116 


SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


Otway  ;  nor  Hampstead  lure  forth  the  sunny  figure  of 
Steele  and  the  passionate  face  of  Keats ;  nor  old  Nor- 
thumberland Street  suggest  the  burly  presence  of  "rare 
Ben  Jonson"  ;  nor  opulent  Kensington  revive  the  stately 
head  of  Addison ;  nor  a  certain  window  in  Wellington 


Street  reveal  in  fancy's 
picture  the  rugged  lin- 
r^vrv'ii«'-T;il  eaments  and  splendid 
eyes  of  Dickens.  Yet 
London  never  disappoints ;  and  for  him  who  knows 
and  feels  its  history  these  associations,  and  hundreds 
like  to  these,  make  it  populous  with  noble  or  strange 
or  pathetic  figures,  and  diversify  the  aspect  of  its  vital 
present  with  pictures  of  an  equally  vital  past.  Such  a 
wanderer  discovers  that  in  this  vast  capital  there  is 
literally  no  end  to  the  themes  that  are  to  stir  his  imagi- 


XI  WESTMINSTER.  ABBEY  117 

nation,  touch  his  heart,  and  broaden  his  mind.  Soothed 
already  by  the  equable  English  climate  and  the  lovely 
English  scenery,  he  is  aware  now  of  an  influence  in 
the  solid  English  city  that  turns  his  intellectual  life  to 
perfect  tranquillity.  He  stands  amid  achievements  that 
are  finished,  careers  that  are  consummated,  great  deeds 
that  are  done,  great  memories  that  are  immortal ;  he 
views  and  comprehends  the  sum  of  all  that  is  possible 
to  human  thought,  passion,  and  labour ;  and  then,  — 
high  over  mighty  London,  above  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's 
cathedral,  piercing  the  clouds,  greeting  the  sun,  drawing 
into  itself  all  the  tremendous  life  of  the  great  city  and 
all  the  meaning  of  its  past  and  present,  —  the  golden 
cross  of  Christ ! 


^jxH^    _jiim" 


CHAPTER   XII 


SHAKESPEARE  S    HOME 


T    is   the    everlasting   glory    of    Stratford- 
upon-Avon  that  it  was  the  birthplace  of 
Shakespeare.     Situated    in   the    heart   of 
Warwickshire,  which  has  been  called  "  the 
garden  of  England,"  it  nestles  cosily  in  an 
atmosphere   of   tranquil    loveliness  and   is    surrounded 
with  everything  that  soft  and  gentle  rural  scenery  can 
provide  to  soothe  the  mind  and  to  nurture  contentment. 
It  stands  upon   a  plain,  almost    in  the  centre  of   the 
island,  through  which,  between  the  low  green  hills  that 
roll  away  on  either  side,  the  Avon  flows  downward  to 
the  Severn.     The  country  in  its  neighbourhood  is  under 
perfect  cultivation,  and  for  many  miles  around  presents 
the  appearance  of  a  superbly  appointed  park.     Portions 
of  the  land  are  devoted  to  crops  and  pasture ;    other 
portions  are  thickly  wooded  with  oak,  elm,  willow,  and 
chestnut ;    the  meadows  are  intersected    by  hedges  of 
fragrant  hawthorn,  and  the  region  smiles  with  flowers. 
Old  manor-houses,  half-hidden    among   the   trees,  and 
thatched  cottages  embowered  with  roses  are  sprinkled 

ii8 


CHAP.   XII 


SHAKESPEARE'S    HOxME 


119 


through  the  surrounding  landscape  ;  and  all  the  roads 
that  converge  upon  this  point  —  from  Birmingham, 
Warwick,  Shipton,  Bidford,  Alcester,  Evesham,  Worces- 


ter, and  other  contiguous  towns  —  wind,  in  sun  and 
shadow,  through  a  sod  of  green  velvet,  swept  by  the 
cool,  sweet  winds  of  the  English  summer.  Such  felici- 
ties of  situation  and  such  accessories  of  beauty,  how- 


120  SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND  chap. 

ever,  are  not  unusual  in  England ;  and  Stratford,  were 
it  not  hallowed  by  association,  though  it  would  always 
hold  a  place  among  the  pleasant  memories  of  the 
traveller,  would  not  have  become  a  shrine  for  the 
homage  of  the  world.  To  Shakespeare  it  owes  its 
renown ;  from  Shakespeare  it  derives  the  bulk  of  its 
prosperity.  To  visit  Stratford  is  to  tread  with  affec- 
tionate veneration  in  the  footsteps  of  the  poet.  To 
write  about  Stratford  is  to  write  about  Shakespeare. 

More  than  three  hundred  years  have  passed  since 
the  birth  of  that  colossal  genius  and  many  changes 
have  occurred  in  his  native  town  within  that  period. 
The  Stratford  of  Shakespeare's  time  was  built  prin- 
cipally of  timber,  and  it  contained  about  fourteen  hun- 
dred inhabitants.  To-day  its.  population  numbers  more 
than  eight  thousand.  New  dwellings  have  arisen  where 
once  were  fields  of  wheat,  glorious  with  the  shimmer- 
ing lustre  of  the  scarlet  poppy.  Many  of  the  older 
buildings  have  been  altered.  Manufacture  has  been 
stimulated  into  prosperous  activity.  The  Avon  has 
been  spanned  by  a  new  bridge,  of  iron  —  a  path  for 
pedestrians,  adjacent  to  Clopton's  bridge  of  stone. 
(The  iron  bridge  was  opened  November  23,  1827.  The 
Clopton  Bridge  was  376  yards  long  and  about  16  yards 
wide.  Alterations  of  the  west  end  of  it  were  made  in 
1 8 14.)  The  streets  have  been  levelled,  swept,  rolled 
and  garnished  till  they  look  like  a  Flemish  drawing,  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  Even  the  Shakespeare  cottage,  the 
old  Harvard  house  in  High  Street,  and  the  two  old 
churches  —  authentic  and  splendid  memorials  of  a  dis- 
tant and  storied  past  —  have  been  "restored."  If  the 
poet  could  walk  again  through  his  accustomed  haunts, 


XII  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  121 

though  he  would  see  the  same  smiling  country  round 
about,  and  hear,  as  of  old,  the  ripple  of  the  Avon 
murmuring  in  its  summer  sleep,  his  eyes  would  rest  on 
but  few  objects  that  once  he  knew.  Yet,  there  are  the 
paths  that  Shakespeare  often  trod ;  there  stands  the 
house  in  which  he  was  born  ;  there  is  the  school  in 
which  he  was  taught ;  there  is  the  cottage  in  which  he 
wooed  his  sweetheart ;  there  are  the  traces  and  relics  of 
the  mansion  in  which  he  died ;  and  there  is  the  church 
that  keeps  his  dust,  so  consecrated  by  the  reverence  of 
mankind 


'•  That  kings  for  such  a  tomb  would  wish  to  die.' 


'& 


In  shape  the  town  of  Stratford  somewhat  resembles 
a  large  cross,  which  is  formed  by  High  Street,  running 
nearly  north  and  south,  and  Bridge  Street  and  Wood 
Street,  running  nearly  east  and  west.  From  these, 
which  are  main  avenues,  radiate  many  and  devious 
branches.  A  few  of  the  streets  are  broad  and  straight 
but  many  of  them  are  narrow  and  crooked.  High  and 
Bridge  streets  intersect  each  other  at  the  centre  of  the 
town,  and  there  stands  the  market  house,  an  ugly 
building,  of  the  period  of  George  the  Fourth,  with 
belfry  and  illuminated  clock,  facing  eastward  toward 
the  old  stone  bridge,  with  fourteen  arches,  —  the  bridge 
that  Sir  Hugh  Clopton  built  across  the  Avon,  in  the 
reign  of  Henry  the  Seventh.  A  cross  once  stood  at 
the  corner  of  High  Street  and  Wood  Street,  and  near 
the  cross  was  a  pump  and  a  well.  From  that  central 
point  a  few  steps  will  bring  the  traveller  to  the  birth- 
place of  Shakespeare.  It  is  a  little,  two-story  cottage, 
of   timber    and    plaster,  on    the    north   side  of  Henley 


^ 


•5 
1^ 


CHAP.  XII  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  123 

Street,  in  the  western  part  of  the  town.  It  must  have 
been,  in  its  pristine  days,  finer  than  most  of  the 
dwellings  in  its  neighbourhood.  The  one-story  house, 
with  attic  windows,  was  the  almost  invariable  fashion 
of  building,  in  English  country  towns,  till  the  seven- 
teenth century.  This  cottage,  besides  its  two  stories, 
had  dormer-windows,  a  pent-house  over  its  door,  and 
altogether  was  built  and  appointed  in  a  manner  both 
luxurious  and  substantial.  Its  age  is  unknown ;  but 
the  history  of  Stratford  reaches  back  to  a  period  three 
hundred  years  antecedent  to  William  the  Conqueror, 
and  fancy,  therefore,  is  allowed  ample  room  to  magnify 
its  antiquity.  It  was  bought,  or  occupied,  by  Shake- 
speare's father  in  1555,  and  in  it  he  resided  till  his 
death,  in  1601,  when  it  descended  by  inheritance  to  the 
poet.  Such  is  the  substance  of  the  complex  documen- 
tary evidence  and  of  the  emphatic  tradition  that  conse- 
crate this  cottage  as  the  house  in  which  Shakespeare 
was  born.  The  point  has  never  been  absolutely  settled. 
John  Shakespeare,  the  fathgr,  was  the  owner  in  1564 
not  only  of  the  house  in  Henley  Street  but  of  another 
in  Greenhill  Street.  William  Shakespeare  might  have 
been  born  at  either  of  those  dwellings.  Tradition,  how- 
ever, has  sanctified  the  Henley  Street  cottage  ;  and  this, 
accordingly,  as  Shakespeare's  cradle,  will  be  piously 
guarded  to  a  late  posterity. 

It  has  already  survived  serious  perils  and  vicissitudes. 
By  Shakespeare's  will  it  was  bequeathed  to  his  sister 
Joan  —  Mrs.  William  Hart — to  be  held  by  her,  under 
the  yearly  rent  of  twelvepence,  during  her  life,  and  at 
her  death  to  revert  to  his  daughter  Susanna  and  her 
descendants.     His  sister   Joan   appears   to    have   been 


124  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

living  there  at  the  time  of  his  decease,  in  1616.  She  is 
known  to  have  been  living  there  in  1639  —  twenty-three 
years  later,  —  and  doubtless  she  resided  there  till  her 
death,  in  1646.  The  estate  then  passed  to  Susanna  — 
Mrs.  John  Hall,  —  from  whom  in  1649  it  descended  to 
her  grandchild,  Lady  Barnard,  who  left  it  to  her  kins- 
men, Thomas  and  George  Hart,  grandsons  of  Joan.  In 
this  line  of  descent  it  continued  —  subject  to  many  of 
those  infringements  which  are  incidental  to  poverty  — 
till  1806,  when  William  Shakespeare  Hart,  the  seventh 
in  collateral  kinship  from  the  poet,  sold  it  to  Thomas 
Court,  from  whose  family  it  was  at  last  purchased  for 
the  British  nation.  Meantime  the  property,  which 
originally  consisted  of  two  tenements  and  a  consider- 
able tract  of  adjacent  land,  had,  little  by  little,  been 
curtailed  of  its  fair  proportions  by  the  sale  of  its  gardens 
and  orchards.  The  two  tenements  —  two  in  one,  that 
is  —  had  been  subdivided.  A  part  of  the  building 
became  an  inn  —  at  first  called  "The  Maidenhead," 
afterward  "The  Swan,"  and  finally  "The  Swan  and 
Maidenhead."  Another  part  became  a  butcher's  shop. 
The  old  dormer-windows  and  the  pent-house  disap- 
peared. A  new  brick  casing  was  foisted  upon  the 
tavern  end  of  the  structure.  In  front  of  the  butcher's 
shop  appeared  a  sign  announcing  "  William  Shakespeare 
was  born  in  this  house:  N.B.  —  A  Horse  and  Taxed 
Cart  to  Let."  Still  later  appeared  another  legend, 
vouching  that  "  the  immortal  Shakespeare  was  born  in 
this  house."  From  1793  till  1820  Thomas  and  Mary 
Hornby,  connections  by  marriage  with  the  Harts,  lived 
in  the  Shakespeare  cottage — now  at  length  become 
the   resort   of   literary    pilgrims,  —  and  Mary  Hornby, 


XII  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  125 

who  set  up  to  be  a  poet  and  wrote  tragedy,  comedy, 
and  philosophy,  took  delight  in  exhibiting  its  rooms  to 
visitors.  During  the  reign  of  that  eccentric  custodian 
the  low  ceilings  and  whitewashed  walls  of  its  ^everal 
chambers  became  covered  with  autographs,  scrawled 
thereon  by  many  enthusiasts,  including  some  of  the 
most  famous  persons  in  Europe.  In  1820  Mary  Hornby 
was  requested  to  leave  the  premises.  She  did  not  wish 
to  go.  She  could  not  endure  the  thought  of  a  successor. 
"  After  me,  the  deluge  !  "  She  was  obliged  to  abdicate  ; 
but  she  conveyed  away  all  the  furniture  and  relics  al- 
leged to  be  connected  with  Shakespeare's  family,  and 
she  hastily  whitewashed  the  cottage  walls.  Only  a 
small  part  of  the  wall  of  the  upper  room,  the  chamber 
in  which  "  nature's  darling  "  first  saw  the  light,  escaped 
that  act  of  spiteful  sacrilege.  On  the  space  behind  its 
door  may  still  be  read  many  names,  with  dates  affixed, 
ranging  back  from  1820  to  1729.  Among  them  is  that 
of  Dora  Jordan,  the  beautiful  and  fascinating  actress, 
who  wrote  it  there  June  2,  1809.  Much  of  Mary 
Hornby's  whitewash,  which  chanced  to  be  unsized,  was 
afterward  removed,  so  that  her  work  of  obliteration 
proved  only  in  part  successful.  Other  names  have 
been  added  to  this  singular,  chaotic  scroll  of  worship. 
Byron,  Scott,"^  Rogers,  Thackeray,  Kean,  Tennyson, 
and  Dickens  are  among  the  votaries  there  and  thus 
recorded.     The  successors   of    Mary  Hornby    guarded 

1  Sir  Walter  Scott  visited  Shakespeare's  birthplace  in  August,  1821,  and 
at  that  time  scratched  his  name  on  the  window-pane.  He  had  previously, 
in  1815,  visited  Kenihvorth.  He  was  in  Stratford  again  in  1828,  and  on 
April  8  he  went  to  Shakespeare's  grave,  and  subsequently  drove  to  Charle- 
cote.  The  visit  of  Lord  Byron  has  been  incorrectly  assigned  to  the  year 
1 81 6.     It  occurred  on  August  28,  possibly  in  181 2. 


126  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

their  charge  with  pious  care.  The  precious  value  of 
the  old  Shakespeare  cottage  grew  more  and  more 
evident  to  the  English  people.  Washington  Irving 
made  his  pilgrimage  to  Stratford  and  recounted  it  in  his 
beautiful  SkctcJi-Book.  Yet  it  was  not  till  P.  T.  Barnum, 
from  the  United  States,  arrived  with  a  proposition  to 
buy  the  Shakespeare  house  and  convey  it  to  America 
that  the  literary  enthusiasm  of  Great  Britain  was  made 
to  take  a  practical  shape,  and  this  venerated  and  in- 
estimable relic  became,  in  1847,"  a  national  possession. 
In  1856  John  Shakespeare,  of  Worthington  Field,  near 
Ashby-de-la-Zouche,  gave  a  large  sum  of  money  to 
restore  it ;  and  within  the  next  two  years,  under  the 
superintendence  of  Edward  Gibbs  and  William  Holtom 
of  Stratford,  it  was  isolated  by  the  demolition  of  the 
cottages  at  its  sides  and  in  the  rear,  repaired  wherever 
decay  was  visible,  and  set  in  perfect  order. 

The  builders  of  this  house  must  have  done  their  work 
thoroughly  well,  for  even  after  all  these  years  of  rough 
usage  and  of  slow  but  incessant  decline  the  great  tim- 
bers remain  solid,  the  plastered  walls  are  firm,  the  huge 
chimney-stack  is  as  permanent  as  a  rock,  and  the  ancient 
flooring  only  betrays  by  the  channelled  aspect  of  its 
boards,  and  the  high  polish  on  the  heads  of  the  nails 
which  fasten  them  down,  that  it  belongs  to  a  period  of 
remote  antiquity.  The  cottage  stands  close  upon  the  mar- 
gin of  the  street,  according  to  ancient  custom  of  build- 
ing throughout  Stratford;  and,  entering  through  a  little 
porch,  the  pilgrim  stands  at  once  in  that  low-ceiled,  flag- 
stoned  room,  with  its  wide  fire-place,  so  familiar  in  prints 
of  the  chimney-corner  of  Shakespeare's  youthful  days. 
Within  the  fire-place,  on  either  side,  is  a  seat  fashioned 


XII 


SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  127 


in  the  brick-work ;  and  here,  as  it  is  pleasant  to  imagine, 
the  boy-poet  often  sat,  on  winter  nights,  gazing  dreamily 
into  the  flames,  and  building  castles  in  that  fairyland  of 
fancy  which  was  his  celestial  inheritance.  You  pres- 
ently pass  from  this  room  by  a  narrow,  well-worn  stair- 
case to  the  chamber  above,  which  is  shown  as  the  place 
of  the  poet's  birth.  An  antiquated  chair,  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  stands  in  the  right-hand  corner.  At  the  left  is 
a  small  fire-place.  Around  the  walls  are  visible  the 
ofreat  beams  which  are  the  framework  of  the  build- 
ine: — beams  of  seasoned  oak  that  will  last  forever. 
Opposite  to  the  door  of  entrance  is  a  threefold  case- 
ment (the  original  window)  full  of  narrow  panes  of 
glass  scrawled  all  over  with  names  that  their  worship- 
ful owners  have  written  with  diamonds.  The  ceiling  is 
so  low  that  you  can  easily  touch  it  with  uplifted  hand. 
A  portion  of  it  is  held  in  place  by  a  network  of  little 
iron  laths.  This  room,  and  indeed  the  whole  structure, 
is  as  polished  and  orderly  as  any  waxen,  royal  hall  in 
the  Louvre,  and  it  impresses  observation  much  like  old 
lace  that  has  been  treasured  up,  in  lavender  or  jasmine. 
These  walls,  which  no  one  is  now  permitted  to  mar, 
were  naturally  the  favourite  scroll  of  the  Shakespeare 
votaries  of  long  ago.  Every  inch  of  the  plaster  bears 
marks  of  the  pencil  of  reverence.  Hundreds  of  names 
are  written  there — some  of  them  famous  but  most  of 
them  obscure,  and  all  destined  to  perish  where  they 
stand.  On  the  chimney-piece  at  the  right  of  the  fire- 
place, which  is  named  The  Actor's  Pillar,  many  actors 
have  inscribed  their  signatures.  Edmund  Kean  wrote 
his  name  there  —  with  what  soulful  veneration  and 
spiritual  sympathy  it  is  awful  even  to  try  to  imagine. 


128  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

Sir  Walter  Scott's  name  is  scratched  with  a  diamond  on 
the  window  —  "  W.  Scott."  That  of  Thackeray  appears 
on  the  ceiUng,  and  upon  the  beam  across  the  centre  is 
that  of  Helen  Faucit.  The  name  of  Eliza  Vestris  is 
written  near  the  fireplace.  Mark  Lemon  and  Charles 
Dickens  are  together  on  the  opposite  wall.  Byron 
wrote  his  name  there,  but  it  has  disappeared.  The  list 
would  include,  among  others,  Elliston,  Buckstone,  G.  V. 
Brooke,  Charles  Kean,  Charles  Mathews,  and  Fanny  Fitz- 
william.  But  it  is  not  of  these  offerings  of  fealty  that 
you  think  when  you  sit  and  muse  alone  in  that  myste- 
rious chamber.  As  once  again  I  conjure  up  that  strange 
and  solemn  scene,  the  sunshine  rests  in  checkered, 
squares  upon  the  ancient  floor,  the  motes  swim  in  the 
sunbeams,  the  air  is  very  cold,  the  place  is  hushed  as 
death,  and  over  it  all  there  broods  an  atmosphere  of 
grave  suspense  and  mystical  desolation  —  a  sense  of 
some  tremendous  energy  stricken  dumb  and  frozen  into 
silence  and  past  and  gone  forever. 

Opposite  to  the  birthchamber,  at  the  rear,  there  is  a 
small  apartment,  in  which  is  displayed  "  the  Stratford 
Portrait"  of  the  poet.  This  painting  is  said  to  have 
been  owned  by  the  Clopton  family,  and  to  have  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  William  Hunt,  town  clerk  of  Strat- 
ford, who  bought  the  mansion  of  the  Cloptons  in  1758. 
The  adventures  through  which  it  passed  can  only  be 
conjectured.  It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  valued, 
and  although  it  remained  in  the  house  it  was  cast  away 
among  lumber  and  rubbish.  In  process  of  time  it  was 
painted  over  and  changed  into  a  different  subject.  Then 
it  fell  a  prey  to  dirt  and  damp.  There  is  a  story  that 
the  little  boys  of  the  tribe  of  Hunt  were  accustomed  to 


xii  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  129 

use  it  as  a  target  for  their  arrows.  At  last,  after  the 
lapse  of  a  century,  the  grandson  of  William  Hunt 
showed  it  by  chance  to  Simon  Collins,  an  artist,  who 
surmised  that  a  valuable  portrait  might  perhaps  exist 
beneath  its  muddy  surface.  It  was  carefully  cleaned. 
A  thick  beard  was  removed,  and  the  face  of  Shakespeare 
emerged  upon  the  canvas.  It  is  not  pretended  that  this 
portrait  was  painted  in  Shakespeare's  time.  The  close 
resemblance  that  it  bears,  —  in  attitude,  dress,  colours, 
and  other  peculiarities,  —  to  the  painted  bust  of  the 
poet  in  Stratford  church  seems  to  indicate  that  it  is  a 
modern  copy  of  that  work.  Upon  a  brass  plate  affixed 
to  it  is  the  following  inscription :  "  This  portrait  of 
Shakespeare,  after  being  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  William 
Oakes  Hunt,  town-clerk  of  Stratford,  and  his  family,  for 
upwards  of  a  century,  was  restored  to  its  original  condi- 
tion by  Mr.  Simon  Collins  of  London,  and,  being  con- 
sidered a  portrait  of  much  interest  and  value,  was  given 
by  Mr.  Hunt  to  the  town  of  Stratford-upon-Avon,  to  be 
preserved  in  Shakespeare's  house,  23d  April,  1862." 
There,  accordingly,  it  remains,  and,  in  association  with 
several  other  dubious  presentments  of  the  poet,  cheer- 
fully adds  to  the  mental  confusion  of  the  pilgrim  who 
would  form  an  accurate  image  of  Shakespeare's  appear- 
ance. Standing  in  its  presence  it  was  worth  while  to 
reflect  that  there  are  only  two  authentic  representations 
of  Shakespeare  in  existence  —  the  Droeshout  portrait 
and  the  Gerard  Jonson  bust.  They  may  not  be  perfect 
works  of  art ;  they  may  not  do  justice  to  the  original ; 
but  they  were  seen  and  accepted  by  persons  to  whom 
Shakespeare  had  been  a  living  companion.  The  bust 
was  sanctioned  by  his  children  ;  the  portrait  was  sane- 


130  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

tioned  by  his  friend  Ben  Jonson,  and  by  his  brother 
actors  Heminge  and  Condell,  who  prefixed  it,  in  1623,  to 
the  first  folio  of  his  works.  Standing  among  the  relics 
that  have  been  gathered  into  a  museum  in  an  apartment 
on  the  ground-floor  of  the  cottage  it  was  essential  also 
to  remember  how  often  "  the  wish  is  father  to  the 
thought"  that  sanctifies  the  uncertain  memorials  of  the 
distant  past.  Several  of  the  most  suggestive  documents, 
though,  which  bear  upon  the  sparse  and  shadowy  record 
of  Shakespeare's  life  are  preserved  in  this  place.  Here 
is  a  deed,  made  in  1596,  which  proves  that  this  house 
was  his  father's  residence.  Here  is  the  only  letter 
addressed  to  him  that  is  known  to  exist  —  the  letter  of 
Richard  Quiney  (1598)  asking  for  the  loan  of  thirty 
pounds.  Here  is  a  declaration  in  a  suit,  in  1604,  to  re- 
cover the  price  of  some  malt  that  he  had  sold  to  Philip 
Rogers.  Here  is  a  deed,  dated  1609,  on  which  is  the 
autograph  of  his  brother  Gilbert,  who  represented  him, 
at  Stratford,  in  his  business  affairs,  while  he  was  absent 
in  London,  and  who,  surviving,  it  is  dubiously  said,  al- 
most till  the  period  of  the  Restoration,  talked,  as  a  very 
old  man,  of  the  poet's  impersonation  of  Adam  in  As 
You  Like  It.  (Possibly  the  reference  of  that  legend  is 
not  to  Gilbert  but  to  a  son  of  his.  Gilbert  would  have 
been  nearly  a  century  old  when  Charles  the  Second 
came  to  the  throne.)  Here  likewise  is  shown  a  gold 
seal  ring,  found  many  years  ago  in  a  field  near  Stratford 
church,  on  which,  delicately  engraved,  appear  the  letters 
W.  S.,  entwined  with  a  true  lovers'  knot.  It  may  have 
belonged  to  Shakespeare.  The  conjecture  is  that  it  did, 
and  that,  —  since  on  the  last  of  the  three  sheets  which 
contain  his  will  the  word  "  seal "  is  stricken  out  and  the 


XII  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  131 

word  "hand"  substituted,  —  he  did  not  seal  that  docu- 
ment because  he  had  only  just  then  lost  this  ring.  The 
supposition  is,  at  least,  ingenious.  It  will  not  harm  the 
visitor  to  accept  it.  Nor,  as  he  stands  poring  over  the 
ancient,  decrepit  school-desk  which  has  been  lodged  in 
this  museum,  from  the  grammar-school,  will  it  greatly 
tax  his  credulity  to  believe  that  the  "  shining  morning 
face  "  of  the  boy  Shakespeare  once  looked  down  upon 
it,  in  the  irksome  quest  of  his  "small  Latin  and  less 
Greek."  They  call  it  Shakespeare's  desk.  It  is  old, 
and  it  is  known  to  have  been  in  the  school  of  the  guild 
three  hundred  years  ago.  There  are  other  relics,  more 
or  less  indirectly  connected  with  the  great  name  that  is 
here  commemorated.  The  inspection  of  them  all  would 
consume  many  days ;  the  description  of  them  would 
occupy  many  pages.  You  write  your  name  in  the  visi- 
tors' book  at  parting,  and  perhaps  stroll  forth  into  the 
garden  of  the  cottage,  which  encloses  it  at  the  sides  and 
in  the  rear,  and  there,  beneath  the  leafy  boughs  of  the 
English  lime,  while  your  footsteps  press  "the  grassy 
carpet  of  this  plain,"  behold  growing  all  around  you 
the  rosemary,  pansies,  fennel,  columbines,  rue,  daisies, 
and  violets,  which  make  the  imperishable  garland  on 
Ophelia's  grave,  and  which  are  the  fragrance  of  her 
solemn  and  lovely  memory. 

Thousands  of  times  the  wonder  must  have  been  ex- 
pressed that  while  the  world  knows  so  much  about 
Shakespeare's  mind  it  should  know  so  little  about  his 
life.  The  date  of  his  birth,  even,  is  established  by  an 
inference.  The  register  of  Stratford  church  shows  that 
he  was  baptised  there  in  1564,  on  April  26.  It  was 
customary  to  baptise  infants  on  the  third  day  after  their 


132  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

birth.  It  is  presumed  that  the  custom  was  followed  in 
this  instance,  and  hence  it  is  deduced  that  Shakespeare 
was  born  on  April  2^, — a  date  which,  making  allow- 
ance for  the  difference  between  the  old  and  new  styles 
of  reckoning  time,  corresponds  to  our  third  of  May. 
Equally  by  an  inference  it  is  established  that  the  boy 
was  educated  in  the  free  grammar-school.  The  school 
was  there ;  and  any  boy  of  the  town,  who  was  seven 
years  old  and  able  to  read,  could  get  admission  to  it. 
Shakespeare's  father,  an  alderman  of  Stratford  (elected 
chief  alderman,  October  lo,  1571),  and  then  a  man  of 
worldly  substance,  though  afterward  he  became  poor, 
would  surely  have  wished  that  his  children  should  grow 
up  in  knowledge.  To  the  ancient  school-house,  accord- 
ingly, and  the  adjacent  chapel  of  the  guild — which  are 
still  extant,  at  the  south-east  corner  of  Chapel  Lane 
and  Church  Street  —  the  pilgrim  confidently  traces  the 
footsteps  of  the  poet.  Those  buildings  are  of  singular, 
picturesque  quaintness.  The  chapel  dates  back  to 
about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  It  was  a 
Roman  Catholic  institution,  founded  in  1296,  under  the 
patronage  of  the  Bishop  of  Worcester,  and  committed 
to  the  pious  custody  of  the  guild  of  Stratford.  A  hos- 
pital was  connected  with  it  in  those  days,  and  Robert 
de  Stratford  was  its  first  master.  New  privileges  and 
confirmation  were  granted  to  the  guild  by  Henry  the 
Sixth,  in  1403  and  1429.  The  grammar-school,  estab- 
lished on  an  endowment  of  lands  and  tenements  by 
Thomas  Jolyffe,  was  set  up  in  association  with  it  in 
1482.  Toward  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Henry  the 
Seventh  the  whole  of  the  chapel,  excepting  the  chancel, 
was  torn  down  and  rebuilt  under  the  munificent  direc- 


Xii  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  133 

tion  of  Sir  Hugh  Clopton,  Lord  Mayor  of  London  and 
Stratford's  chief  citizen  and  benefactor.  Under  Henry 
the  Eighth,  when  came  the  stormy  times  of  the  Refor- 
mation; the  priests  were  driven  out,  the  guild  was  dis- 
solved, and  the  chapel  was  despoiled.  Edward  the 
Sixth,  however,  granted  a  new  charter  to  this  ancient 
institution,  and  with  especial  precautions  reinstated  the 
school.  The  chapel  itself  was  occasionally  used  as  a 
schoolroom  when  Shakespeare  was  a  boy,  and  until  as 
late  as  the  year  1 595  ;  and  in  case  the  lad  did  go  thither 
(in  1 571)  as  a  pupil,  he  must  have  been  from  childhood 
familiar  with  the  series  of  grotesque  paintings  upon  its 
walls,  presenting,  in  a  pictorial  panorama,  the  history' 
of  the  Holy  Cross,  from  its  origin  as  a  tree  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  world  to  its  exaltation  at  Jerusalem. 
Those  paintings  were  brought  to  light  in  1804  in  the 
course  of  a  renovation  of  the  chapel  which  then  occurred, 
when  the  walls  were  relieved  of  thick  coatings  of  white- 
wash, laid  on  them  long  before,  in  Puritan  times,  either 
to  spoil  or  to  hide  from  the  spoiler.  They  are  not  visi- 
ble now,  but  they  were  copied  and  have  been  engraved. 
The  drawings  of  them,  by  Fisher,  are  in  the  collection 
of  Shakespearean  Rarities  made  by  J.  O.  Halliwell- 
Phillipps.  This  chapel  and  its  contents  constitute  one 
of  the  few  remaining  spectacles  at  Stratford  that  bring 
us  face  to  face  with  Shakespeare.  During  the  last 
seven  years  of  his  life  he  dwelt  almost  continually  in 
his  house  of  New  Place,  on  the  corner  immediately 
opposite  to  this  church.  The  configuration  of  the 
excavated  foundations  of  that  house  indicates  what 
would  now  be  called  a  deep  bay-window  in  its  southern 
front.     There,  probably,  was  Shakespeare's  study  ;  and 


134  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

through  that  casement,  many  and  many  a  time,  in 
storm  and  in  sunshine,  by  night  and  by  day,  he  must 
have  looked  out  upon  the  grim,  square  tower,  the 
embattled  stone  wall,  and  the  four  tall  Gothic  windows 
of  that  mysterious  temple.  The  moment  your  gaze 
falls  upon  it,  the  low-breathed,  horror-stricken  words 
of  Lady  Macbeth  murmur  in  your  memory  :  — 

"  The  raven  himself  is  hoarse 
That  croaks  the  fatal  entrance  of  Duncan 
Under  my  battlements." 

New  Place,  Shakespeare's  home  at  the  time  of  his 
death  and  the  house  in  which  he  died,  stood  on  the 
north-east  corner  of  Chapel  Street  and  Chapel  Lane. 
Nothing  now  remains  of  it  but  a  portion  of  its  foun- 
dations—  long  buried  in  the  earth,  but  found  and 
exhumed  in  comparatively  recent  days.  Its  gardens 
have  been  redeemed,  through  the  zealous  and  devoted 
exertions  of  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps  and  have  been 
restored  to  what  is  thought  to  have  been  almost  their 
condition  when  Shakespeare  owned  them.  The  crum- 
bling fragments  of  the  foundation  are  covered  with 
screens  of  wood  and  wire.  A  mulberry-tree,  a  scion  of 
the  famous  mulberry  that  Shakespeare  is  known  to 
have  planted,  is  growing  on  the  lawn.  There  is  no 
authentic  picture  in  existence  that  shows  New  Place  as 
it  was  when  Shakespeare  left  it,  but  there  is  a  sketch 
of  it  as  it  appeared  in  1740.  The  house  was  made  of 
brick  and  timber,  and  was  built  by  Sir  Hugh  Clopton 
nearly  a  century  before  it  became  by  purchase  the 
property  of  the  poet.  Shakespeare  bought  it  in  1597, 
and  in  it  he  passed,  intermittently,  a  considerable  part 


XII  SHAKESPEARE'S    HOME  135 

of  the  last  nineteen  years  of  his  Hfe.  It  had  borne  the 
name  of  New  Place  before  it  came  into  his  possession. 
The  Clopton  family  parted  with  it  in  1563,  and  it  was 
subsequently  owned  by  families  of  Bott  and  Underbill. 
At  Shakespeare's  death  it  was  inherited  by  his  eldest 
daughter,  Susanna,  wife  of  Dr.  John  Hall.  In  1643, 
Mrs.  Hall,  then  seven  years  a  widow,  being  still  its 
owner  and  occupant,  Henrietta  Maria,  queen  to  Charles 
the  First,  who  had  come  to  Stratford  with  a  part  of  the 
royal  army,  resided  for  three  days  at  New  Place,  which, 
therefore,  must  even  then  have  been  the  most  consider- 
able private  residence  in  the  town.  (The  queen  arrived 
at  Stratford  on  July  11  and  on  July  13  she  went  to 
Kineton.)  Mrs.  Hall,  dying  in  1649,  aged  sixty-six, 
left  it  to  her  only  child,  Elizabeth,  then  Mrs.  Thomas 
Nashe,  who  afterward  became  Lady  Barnard,  wife  to 
Sir  John  Barnard,  of  Abingdon,  and  in  whom  the  direct 
line  of  Shakespeare  ended.  After  her  death  the  estate 
was  purchased  by  Sir  Edward  Walker,  in  1675,  who 
ultimately  left  it  to  his  daughter's  husband.  Sir  John 
Clopton  (1638-1719),  and  so  it  once  more  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  family  of  its  founder.  A  second  Sir 
Hugh  Clopton  (1671-1751)  owned  it  at  the  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  under  his  direction  it  was 
repaired,  decorated,  and  furnished  with  a  new  front. 
That  proved  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  this  old 
structure,  as  a  relic  of  Shakespeare  ;  for  this  owner, 
dying  in  1751,  bequeathed  it  to  his  son-in-law,  Henry 
Talbot,  who  in  1753  sold  it  to  the  most  universally 
execrated  iconoclast  of  modern  times,  the  Rev.  Francis 
Gastrell,  vicar  of  Frodsham,  in  Cheshire,  by  whom  it 
was   destroyed,     Mr.   Gastrell  was  a  man    of  fortune, 


136  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

and  he  certainly  was  one  of   insensibility.     He    knew 
little  of  Shakespeare ;   but  he  knew  that  the  frequent 
incursion,  into   his  garden,  of  strangers  who  came  to  sit 
beneath   "  Shakespeare's  mulberry  "  was  a  troublesome 
annoyance.     He   struck,  therefore,   at  the  root  of  the 
vexation   and  cut  down  the  tree.     That  was  in   I756.' 
The  wood  was  purchased  by  Thomas  Sharp,  a  watch- 
maker of  Stratford,  who  subsequently  made  the  solemn 
declaration  that  he  carried  it  to  his  home  and  converted 
it  into  toys  and  kindred  memorial  relics.     The  villagers 
of  Stratford,  meantime,  incensed  at  the  barbarity  of  Mr. 
Gastrell,  took   their  revenge  by  breaking  his  windows. 
In  this  and  in  other  ways  the  clergyman  was  probably 
made  to  realise  his  local  unpopularity.     It  had  been  his 
custom  to  reside  during  a  part  of  each  year  in  Lichfield, 
leaving  some  of  his  servants  in  charge  of  New  Place. 
The  overseers  of  Stratford,  having  lawful  authority  to 
levy  a  tax,  for  the  maintenance  of  the  poor,  on  every 
house  in  the  town  valued  at  more  than  forty  shillings  a 
year,  did  not  neglect  to  make  a  vigorous  use  of  their 
privilege   in  the  case  of  Mr.   Gastrell.     The  result  of 
their    exactions    in    the    sacred    cause    of   charity   was 
significant.     In    1759    Mr.    Gastrell   declared   that  the 
house  should  never  be   taxed   again,  pulled  down   the 
building,    sold    the    materials    of   which    it    had   been 
composed,  and  left  Stratford  forever.     He  repaired  to 
Lichfield  and  there  died.     In  the  house  adjacent  to  the 
site  of  what  was  once  Shakespeare's  home  has  been 
established  a  museum  of  Shakespearean  relics.    Among 
them  is   a   stone  mullion,  found  on  the  site,  which  may 
have    belonged  to  a  window  of  the  original  mansion. 
This  estate,  bought  from  different  owners  and  restored 


xn  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  137 

to  its  Shakespearean  condition,  became  on  April  17, 
1876,  the  property  of  the  corporation  of  Stratford. 
The  tract  of  land  is  not  large.  The  visitor  may  traverse 
the  whole  of  it  in  a  few  minutes,  although  if  he  obey 
his  inclination  he  will  linger  there  for  hours.  The 
enclosure  is  an  irregular  rectangle,  about  two  hundred 
feet  long.  The  lawn  is  perfect.  The  mulberry  is 
extant  and  tenacious,  and  wears  its  honours  in  con- 
tented vigour.  Other  trees  give  grateful  shade  to  the 
grounds,  and  the  voluptuous  red  roses,  growing  all 
around  in  rich  profusion,  load  the  air  with  fragrance. 
Eastward,  at  a  little  distance,  flows  the  Avon.  Not  far 
away  rises  the  graceful  spire  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  A 
few  rooks,  hovering  in  the  air  and  wisely  bent  on  some 
facetious  mischief,  send  down  through  the  silver  haze 
of  the  summer  morning  their  sagacious  yet  melancholy 
caw.  The  windows  of  the  gray  chapel  across  the  street 
twinkle,  and  keep  their  solemn  secret.  On  this  spot 
was  first  waved  the  mystic  wand  of  Prospero.  Here 
Ariel  sang  of  dead  men's  bones  turned  into  pearl  and 
coral  in  the  deep  caverns  of  the  sea.  Here  arose  into 
everlasting  life  Hermione,  "  as  tender  as  infancy  and 
grace."  Here  were  created  Miranda  and  Perdita,  twins 
of  heaven's  own  radiant  goodness,  — 

*'  Daffodils 
That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty  ;  violets  dim, 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes 
Or  Cytherea's  breath." 

To  endeavour  to  touch  upon  the  larger  and  more 
august  aspect  of  Shakespeare's  life  —  when,  as  his 
wonderful  sonnets  betray,  his  great  heart  had  felt  the 


13S  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  xn 

devastating  blast  of  cruel  passions  and  the  deepest 
knowledge  of  the  good  and  evil  of  the  universe  had 
been  borne  in  upon  his  soul  —  wovild  be  impious  pre- 
sumption. Happily  to  the  stroller  in  Stratford  every 
association  connected  with  him  is  gentle  and  tender. 
His  image,  as  it  rises  there,  is  of  smiling  boyhood  or 
sedate  and  benignant  maturity  ;  always  either  joyous  or 
serene,  never  passionate,  or  turbulent,  or  dark.  The 
pilgrim  thinks  of  him  as  a  happy  child  at  his  father's 
fireside ;  as  a  wondering  school-boy  in  the  quiet,  vener- 
able close  of  the  old  guild  chapel,  where  still  the  only 
sound  that  breaks  the  silence  is  the  chirp  of  birds  or 
the  creaking  of  the  church  vane ;  as  a  handsome,  daunt- 
less youth,  sporting  by  his  beloved  river  or  roaming 
through  field  and  forest  many  miles  around ;  as  the 
bold,  adventurous  spirit,  bent  on  frolic  and  mischief, 
and  not  averse  to  danger,  leading,  perhaps,  the  wild 
lads  of  his  village  in  their  poaching  depredations  on 
the  chace  of  Charlecote ;  as  the  lover,  strolling  through 
the  green  lanes  of  Shottery,  hand  in  hand  with  the 
darling  of  his  first  love,  while  round  them  the  honey- 
suckle breathed  out  its  fragrant  heart  upon  the  winds 
of  night,  and  overhead  the  moonlight,  streaming 
through  rifts  of  elm  and  poplar,  fell  on  their  pathway 
in  showers  of  shimmering  silver ;  and,  last  of  all,  as  the 
illustrious  poet,  rooted  and  secure  in  his  massive  and 
shining  fame,  loved  by  many,  and  venerated  and 
mourned  by  all,  borne  slowly  through  Stratford  church- 
yard, while  the  golden  bells  were  tolled  in  sorrow  and 
the  mourning  Hme-trees  dropped  their  blossoms  on  his 
bier,  to  the  place  of  his  eternal  rest.  Through  all  the 
scenes  incidental  to  this  experience  the  worshipper  of 


140  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

Shakespeare's  genius  may  follow  him  every  step  of  the 
way.  The  old  foot-path  across  the  fields  to  Shottery 
remains  accessible.  Wild-flowers  are  blooming  along 
its  margin.  The  gardens  and  meadows  through  which 
it  winds  are  sprinkled  with  the  gorgeous  scarlet  of  the 
poppy.  The  hamlet  of  Shottery  is  less  than  a  mile 
from  Stratford,  stepping  toward  the  sunset ;  and  there, 
nestled  beneath  the  elms,  and  almost  embowered  in 
vines  and  roses,  stands  the  cottage  in  which  Anne 
Hathaway  was  wooed  and  won.  This  is  even  more 
antiquated  in  appearance  than  the  birthplace  of  Shake- 
speare, and  more  obviously  a  relic  of  the  distant  past. 
It  is  built  of  wood  and  plaster,  ribbed  with  massive 
timbers,  and  covered  with  a  thatch  roof.  It  fronts 
southward,  presenting  its  eastern  end  to  the  road. 
Under  its  eaves,  peeping  through  embrasures  cut  in 
the  thatch,  are  four  tiny  casements,  round  which  the 
ivy  twines  and  the  roses  wave  softly  in  the  wind  of 
June.  The  western  end  of  the  structure  is  higher  than 
the  eastern,  and  the  old  building,  originally  divided  into 
two  tenements,  is  now  divided  into  three.  In  front  of 
it  is  a  straggling  garden.  There  is  a  comfortable  air  of 
wildness,  yet  not  of  neglect,  in  its  appointments  and 
surroundings.  The  place  is  still  the  abode  of  labour 
and  lowliness.  Entering  its  parlour  you  see  a  stone 
floor,  a  wide  fireplace,  a  broad,  hospitable  hearth,  with 
cosy  chimney-corners,  and  near  this  an  old  wooden 
settle,  much  decayed  but  still  serviceable,  on  which 
Shakespeare  may  often  have  sat,  with  Anne  at  his  side. 
The  plastered  walls  of  this  room  here  and  there  reveal 
portions  of  an  oak  wainscot.  The  ceiling  is  low.  This 
evidently  was  the  farm-house  of  a  substantial  yeoman, 


XII  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  141 

in  the  days  of  Henry  the  Eighth.  The  Hathaways  had 
lived  in  Shottery  for  forty  years  prior  to  Shakespeare's 
marriage.  The  poet,  then  undistinguished,  had  just 
turned  eighteen,  while  his  bride  was  nearly  twenty-six, 
and  it  has  been  foolishly  said  that  she  acted  ill  in  wed- 
ding her  boy-lover.  They  were  married  in  November, 
1582,  and  their  first  child,  Susanna,  came  in  the  follow- 
ing May.  Anne  Hathaway  must  have  been  a  wonder- 
fully fascinating  woman,  or  Shakespeare  would  not  so 
have  loved  her ;  and  she  must  have  loved  him  dearly  — 
as  what  woman,  indeed,  could  help  it  ?  —  or  she  would 
not  thus  have  yielded  to  his  passion.  There  is  direct 
testimony  to  the  beauty  of  his  person  ;  and  in  the  light 
afforded  by  his  writings  it  requires  no  extraordinary 
penetration  to  conjecture  that  his  brilliant  mind,  spark- 
ling humour,  tender  fancy,  and  impetuous  spirit  must 
have  made  him,  in  his  youth,  a  paragon  of  enchanters. 
It  is  not  known  where  they  lived  during  the  first  years 
after  their  marriage.  Perhaps  in  this  cottage  at  Shot- 
tery. Perhaps  with  Hamnet  and  Judith  Sadler,  for 
whom  their  twins,  born  in  1585,  were  named  Hamnet 
and  Judith.  Her  father's  house  assuredly  would  have 
been  chosen  for  Anne's  refuge,  when  presently  (in  1585 
-86),  Shakespeare  was  obliged  to  leave  his  wife  and 
children,  and  go  away  to  London  to  seek  his  fortune. 
He  did  not  buy  New  Place  till  1597,  but  it  is  known 
that  in  the  meantime  he  came  to  his  native  town  once 
every  year.  It  was  in  Stratford  that  his  son  Hamnet 
died,  in  1596.  Anne  and  her  children  probably  had 
never  left  the  town.  They  show  a  bedstead  and  other 
bits  of  furniture,  together  with  certain  homespun  sheets 
of  everlasting  linen,  that  are  kept  as  heirlooms  in  the 


142  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  xii 

garret  of  the  Shottery  cottage.  Here  is  the  room  that 
may  often  have  welcomed  the  poet  when  be  came  home 
from  his  labours  in  the  great  city.  It  is  a  homely  and 
humble  place,  but  the  sight  of  it  makes  the  heart  thrill 
with  a  strange  and  incommunicable  awe.  You  cannot 
wish  to  speak  when  you  are  standing  there.  You  are 
scarcely  conscious  of  the  low  rustling  of  the  leaves  out- 
side, the  far-off  sleepy  murmur  of  the  brook,  or  the 
faint  fragrance  of  woodbine  and  maiden's-blush  that  is 
wafted  in  at  the  open  casement  and  that  swathes  in 
nature's  incense  a  memory  sweeter  than  itself. 

Associations  may  be  established  by  fable  as  well  as 
by  fact.  There  is  but  little  reason  to  believe  the  legen- 
dary tale,  first  recorded  by  Rowe,  that  Shakespeare, 
having  robbed  the  deer-park  of  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  of 
Charlecote  (there  was  not  a  park  at  Charlecote  then, 
but  there  was  one  at  Fullbrooke),  was  so  severely 
persecuted  by  that  magistrate  that  he  was  compelled  to 
quit  Stratford  and  shelter  himself  in  London.  Yet  the 
story  has  twisted  itself  into  all  the  lives  of  Shakespeare, 
and  whether  received  or  rejected  has  clung  to  the  house 
of  Charlecote.  That  noble  mansion  —  a  genuine  speci- 
men, despite  a  few  modern  alterations,  of  the  architec- 
ture of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time  —  is  found  on  the  west 
bank  of  the  Avon,  about  three  miles  north-east  from 
Stratford.     It  is  a  long,  rambling,  three-storied  palace 

—  as  finely  quaint  as  old  St.  James's  in  London,  and 
not  altogether  unlike  that  edifice,  in  general  character 

—  with  octagon  turrets,  gables,  balustrades,  Tudor  case- 
ments, and  great  stacks  of  chimneys,  so  closed  in  by 
elms  of  giant  growth  that  you  can  scarce  distinguish  it, 
through  the  foliage,  till  you  are  close  upon  it.     It  was 


■iiSiiSg?^. 


Vijft"1'  cf^ 


CharUcote. 


144  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

erected  in  1558  by  Thomas  Lucy,  who  in  1578  was 
Sheriff  of  Warwickshire,  who  was  elected  to  the  Parlia- 
ments of  1 571  and  1584,  and  who  was  knighted  by 
Queen  Elizabeth  in  1565.  The  porch  to  this  building 
was  designed  by  John  of  Padua.  There  is  a  silly  ballad 
in  existence,  idly  attributed  to  Shakespeare,  which,  it  is 
said,  was  found  affixed  to  Lucy's  gate,  and  gave  him 
great  offence.  He  must  have  been  more  than  com- 
monly sensitive  to  low  abuse  if  he  could  have  been 
annoyed  by  such  a  manifestly  scurrilous  ebullition  of 
the  blackguard  and  the  blockhead,  —  supposing,  indeed, 
that  he  ever  saw  it.  The  ballad,  proffered  as  the  work 
of  Shakespeare,  is  a  forgery.  There  is  but  one  existing 
reason  to  think  that  the  poet  ever  cherished  a  grudge 
against  the  Lucy  family,  and  that  is  the  coarse  allusion 
to  the  "luces"  which  is  found  in  the  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor.  There  was  apparently,  a  second  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy,  later  than  the  Sheriff,  who  was  more  of  the 
Puritanic  breed,  while  Shakespeare  evidently  was  a 
Cavalier.  It  is  possible  that  in  a  youthful  frolic  the 
poet  may  have  poached  on  Sheriff  Lucy's  preserves. 
Even  so,  the  affair  was  trivial.  It  is  possible,  too,  that 
in  after  years  he  may  have  had  reason  to  dislike  the 
ultra-Puritanical  neighbour.  Some  memory  of  the  tra- 
dition will,  of  course,  haunt  the  traveller's  thoughts  as 
he  strolls  by  Hatton  Rock  and  through  the  villages  of 
Hampton  and  Charlecote.  But  this  discordant  recollec- 
tion is  soon  smoothed  away  by  the  peaceful  loveliness 
of  the  ramble  —  past  aged  hawthorns  that  Shakespeare 
himself  may  have  seen,  and  under  the  boughs  of 
beeches,  limes,  and  drooping  willows,  where  every  foot- 
step falls  on  wild-flowers,  or  on  a  cool  green  turf  that  is 


XII 


SHAKESPEARE'S    HOME  14  = 


softer  than  Indian  silk  and  as  firm  and  clastic  as  the 
sand  of  the  sea-beaten  shore.  Thought  of  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy  will  not  be  otherwise  than  kind,  either,  when  the 
stranger  in  Charlecote  church  reads  the  epitaph  with 
which  the  old  knight  commemorated  his  wife :  "  All 
the  time  of  her  Lyfe  a  true  and  faithfull  servant  of  her 
good  God ;  never  detected  of  any  crime  or  vice ;  in 
religion  most  sound;  in  love  to  her  husband  most 
faithfull  and  true.  In  friendship  most  constant.  To 
what .  in  trust  was  committed  to  her  most  secret ;  in 
wisdom  excelling;  in  governing  her  House  and  bringing 
up  of  Youth  in  the  feare  of  God  that  did  converse  with 
her  most  rare  and  singular ;  a  great  maintainer  of  hos- 
pitality ;  greatly  esteemed  of  her  betters ;  misliked  of 
none  unless  the*  envious.  When  all  is  spoken  that  can 
be  said,  a  Woman  so  furnished  and  garnished  with 
Virtue  as  not  to  be  bettered,  and  hardly  to  be  equalled 
of  any ;  as  she  lived  most  virtuously,  so  she  dyed  most 
godly.  Set  down  by  him  that  best  did  know  what  hath 
been  written  to  be  true.  Thomas  Lucy."  A  narrow 
formalist  he  may  have  been,  and  a  severe  magistrate  in 
his  dealings  with  scapegrace  youths,  and  perhaps  a 
haughty  and  disagreeable  neighbour  ;  but  there  is  a 
touch  of  manhood,  high  feeling,  and  virtuous  and  self- 
respecting  character  in  those  lines,  that  instantly  wins 
the  response  of  sympathy.  If  Shakespeare  really  shot 
the  deer  of  Thomas  Lucy  the  injured  gentleman  had  a 
right  to  feel  annoyed.  Shakespeare,  boy  or  man,  was 
not  a  saint,  and  those  who  so  account  him  can  have 
read  his  works  to  but  little  purpose.  He  can  bear  the 
full  brunt  of  his  faults.  He  does  not  need  to  be 
canonised. 


146 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


The  ramble  to  Charlecote  —  one  of  the  prettiest  walks 
about  Stratford  —  was,  it  may  surely  be  supposed,  often 
taken  by  Shakespeare.  Many  another  ramble  was  pos- 
sible to  him  and  no  doubt  was  made.  He  would  cross 
the  mill  bridge  (new  in  1599),  which  spans  the  Avon 
a  little  way  to  the  south  of  the  church.  A  quaint, 
sleepy  mill  no  doubt  it  was  —  flecked  with  moss  and 


Meadow   Walk  by  the  Avon 


ivy — and  the  gaze  of  Shakespeare  assuredly  dwelt  on 
it  with  pleasure.  His  footsteps  may  be  traced,  also,  in 
fancy,  to  the  region  of  the  old  college  building,  demol- 
ished in  1799,  which  stood  in  the  southern  part  of 
Stratford,  and  was  the  home  of  his  friend  John  Combe, 
factor  of  Fulke  Greville,  Earl  of  Warwick.  Still  an- 
other of  his  walks  must  have  tended  northward  through 
Welcombe,   where  he  was  the  owner  of   land,  to  the 


XII  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  147 

portly  manor  of  Clopton,  or  to  the  home  of  WilHam, 
nephew  of  John-a-Combe,  which  stood  where  the 
Phillips  mansion  stands  now.  On  what  is  called  the 
Ancient  House,  which  stands  on  the  west  side  of 
High  Street,  he  may  often  have  looked,  as  he  strolled 
past  to  the  Red  Horse.  That  picturesque  building, 
dated  1596,  survives,  notwithstanding  some  modern 
touches  of  rehabilitation,  as  a  beautiful  specimen  of 
Tudor  architecture  in  one  at  least  of  its  most  charming 
traits,  the  carved  and  timber-crossed  gable.  It  is  a 
house  of  three  stories,  containing  parlour,  sitting-room, 
kitchen,  and  several  bedrooms,  besides  cellars  and  brew- 
shed ;  and  when  sold  at  auction,  August  23,  1876,  it 
brought  ;^400.  In  that  house  was  born  John  Harvard, 
who  founded  Harvard  University.  There  are  other 
dwellings  fully  as  old  in  Stratford,  but  they  have  been 
covered  with  stucco  and  otherwise  changed.  This  is  a 
genuine  piece  of  antiquity  and  it  vies  with  the  grammar- 
school  and  the  hall  of  the  Guild,  under  the  pent-house 
of  which  the  poet  would  pass  whenever  he  went  abroad 
from  New  Place.  Julius  Shaw,  one  of  the  five  wit- 
nesses to  his  will,  lived  in  the  house  next  to  the  present 
New  Place  Museum,  and  there,  it  is  reasonable  to  think, 
Shakespeare  would  often  pause,  for  a  word  with  his 
friend  and  neighbour.  In  the  little  streets  by  the  river- 
side, which  are  ancient  and  redolent  of  the  past,  his 
image  seems  steadily  familiar.  In  Dead  Lane  (once 
also  called  Walker  Street,  now  called  Chapel  Lane)  he 
owned  a  cottage,  bought  of  Walter  Getley  in  1602,  and 
only  destroyed  within  the  present  century.  These  and 
kindred  shreds  of  fact,  suggesting  the  poet  as  a  living 
man  and  connecting  him,  however  vaguely,   with   our 


148  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

everyday  experience,  are  seized  with  peculiar  zest  by 
the  pilgrim  in  Stratford.  Such  a  votary,  for  example, 
never  doubts  that  Shakespeare  was  a  frequenter,  in 
leisure  or  convivial  hours,  of  the  ancient  Red  Horse 
inn.  It  stood  there,  in  his  day,  as  it  stands  now,  on  the 
north  side  of  Bridge  Street,  westward  from  the  Avon. 
There  are  many  other  taverns  in  the  town  —  the 
Shakespeare,  a  delightful  resort,  the  Falcon,  the  Rose 
and  Crown,  the  old  Red  Lion,  and  the  Swan's  Nest, 
being  a  few  of  them,  —  but  the  Red  Horse  takes  prece- 
dence of  all  its  kindred,  in  the  fascinating  because  sug- 
gestive attribute  of  antiquity.  Moreover  it  was  the  Red 
Horse  that  harboured  Washington  Irving,  the  pioneer 
of  American  worshippers  at  the  shrine  of  Shakespeare ; 
and  the  American  explorer  of  Stratford  would  cruelly 
sacrifice  his  peace  of  mind  if  he  were  to  repose  under 
any  other  roof.  The  Red  Horse  is  a  rambling,  three- 
story  building,  entered  through  an  archway  that  leads 
into  a  long,  straggling  yard,  adjacent  to  offices  and 
stables.  On  one  side  of  the  entrance  is  found  the 
smoking-room  ;  on  the  other  is  the  coffee-room.  Above 
are  the  bed-rooms.  It  is  a  thoroughly  old-fashioned 
inn  —  such  a  one  as  we  may  suppose  the  Boar's  Head 
to  have  been,  in  the  time  of  Prince  Henry ;  such  a  one 
as  untravelled  Americans  only  know  in  the  pages  of 
Dickens.  The  rooms  are  furnished  in  neat,  homelike 
style,  and  their  associations  readily  deck  them  with  the 
fragrant  garlands  of  memory.  When  Drayton  and 
Jonson  came  down  to  visit  "  gentle  Will "  at  Stratford 
they  could  scarcely  have  omitted  to  quaff  the  humming 
ale  of  Warwickshire  in  that  cosy  parlour.  When  Queen 
Henrietta  Maria  was  ensconced  at  New  Place  the  gen- 


XII 


SHAKESPEARK'S    HOME  149 


eral  of  the  royal  forces  quartered  himself  at  the  Red 
Horse,  and  then  doubtless  there  was  enough  and  to 
spare  of  revelry  within  its  walls.  A  little  later  the  old 
house  was  soundly  peppered  by  Roundhead  bullets  and 
the  whole  town  was  overrun  with  the  close-cropped, 
psalm-singing  soldiers  of  the  Commonwealth.  In  1742 
Garrick  and  Macklin  lodged  in  the  Red  Horse,  and 
thither  again  came  Garrick  in  1769,  to  direct  the 
Shakespeare  Jubilee,  which  was  then  most  dismally 
accomplished  but  which  is  always  remembered  to  the 
g-reat  actor's  credit  and  honour.  Betterton,  no  doubt, 
lodged  there  when  he  came  to  Stratford  in  quest  of 
reminiscences  of  Shakespeare.  The  visit  of  Washing- 
ton Irving,  supplemented  with  his  delicious  chronicle, 
has  led  to  what  might  be  called  almost  the  consecration 
of  the  parlour  in  which  he  sat  and  the  chamber  (No. 
15)  in  which  he  slept.  They  still  keep  the  poker  — 
now  marked  "  Geoffrey  Crayon's  sceptre  "  — with  which, 
as  he  sat  there  in  long,  silent,  ecstatic  meditation,  he 
prodded  the  fire  in  the  narrow,  tiny  grate.  They  keep 
also  the  chair  in  which  he  sat  —  a  plain,  straight-backed 
arm-chair,  with  a  haircloth  seat,  marked,  on  a  brass 
plate,  with  his  renowned  and  treasured  name.  Thus 
*genius  can  sanctify  even  the  humblest  objects, 

"  And  shed  a  something  of  celestial  light 
Round  the  familiar  face  of  every  day." 

To  pass  rapidly  in  review  the  little  that  is  known  of 
Shakespeare's  life  is,  nevertheless,  to  be  impressed  not 
only  by  its  incessant  and  amazing  literary  fertility  but 
by  the  quick  succession  of  its  salient  incidents.  The 
vitality  must   have  been   enormous  that  created  in  so 


150  SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND  chap. 

short  a  time  such  a  number  and  variety  of  works  of 
the  first  class.  The  same  quick  spirit  would  naturally 
have  kept  in  agitation  all  the  elements  of  his  daily 
experience.  Descended  from  an  ancestor  who  had 
fought  for  the  Red  Rose  on  Bosworth  Field,  he  was 
born  to  repute  as  well  as  competence,  and  during  his 
early  childhood  he  received  instruction  and  training  in 
a  comfortable  home.  He  escaped  the  plague  that  was 
raging  in  Stratford  when  he  was  an  infant,  and  that 
took  many  victims.  He  went  to  school  when  seven 
years  old  and  left  it  when  about  fourteen.  He  then  had 
to  work  for  his  living —  his  once  opulent  father  having 
fallen  into  misfortune  —  and  he  became  an  apprentice 
to  a  butcher,  or  else  a  lawyer's  clerk  (there  were  seven 
lawyers  in  Stratford  at  that  time),  or  else  a  school- 
teacher. Perhaps  he  was  all  three  —  and  more.  It  is 
conjectured  that  he  saw  the  players  who  from  time  to 
time  acted  in  the  Guildhall,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
corporation  of  Stratford  ;  that  he  attended  the  religious 
entertainments  that  were  customarily  given  in  the  not 
distant  city  of  Coventry  ;  and  that  in  particular  he  wit- 
nessed the  elaborate  and  sumptuous  pageants  with  which 
in  1575  the  Earl  of  Leicester  welcomed  Queen  Elizabeth 
to  Kenihvorth  Castle.  He  married  at  eighteen;  and, 
leaving  a  wife  and  three  children  in  Stratford,  he  went 
up  to  London  at  twenty-two.  His  entrance  into  theat- 
rical life  followed  —  in  what  capacity  it  is  impossible  to 
say.  One  dubious  account  says  that  he  held  horses  for 
the  public  at  the  theatre  door;  another  that  he  got 
employment  as  a  prompter  to  the  actors.  It  is  certain 
that  he  had  not  been  in  the  theatrical  business  long 
before  he  began  to  make  himself  known.     At  twenty- 


XII 


SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  151 


eight  he  was  a  prosperous  author.  At  twenty-nine  he 
had  acted  with  Burbage  before  Queen  EHzabeth  ;  and 
while  Spenser  had  extolled  him  in  the  "  Tears  of  the 
Muses,"  the  hostile  Greene  had  disparaged  him  in  the 
"  Groat's-worth  of  Wit."  At  thirty-three  he  had  ac- 
quired wealth  enough  to  purchase  New  Place,  the 
principal  residence  in  his  native  town,  where  now  he 
placed  his  family  and  established  his  home,  —  himself 
remaining  in  London,  but  visiting  Stratford  at  frequent 
intervals.  At  thirty-four  he  was  heard  of  as  the  actor 
of  Knovvell  in  Ben  Jonson's  comedy  of  Every  Man  in 
his  Humour}  and  he  received  the  glowing  encomium  of 
Meres  in  Wifs  Treasury.  At  thirty-eight  he  had  writ- 
ten Hamlet  and  As  You  Like  It,  and  moreover  he  had 
now  become  the  owner  of  more  estate  in  Stratford, 
costing  ;!^320.  At  forty-one  he  made  his  largest  pur- 
chase, buying  for  ;^440  the  "  unexpired  term  of  a 
moiety  of  the  interest  in  a  lease  granted  in  1554  for 
ninety-two  years  of  the  tithes  of  Stratford,  Bishopton, 
and  Welcombe."  In  the  meantime  he  had  smoothed 
the  declining  years  of  his  father  and  had  followed  him 
with  love  and  duty  to  the  grave.  Other  domestic  be- 
reavements likewise  befell  him,  and  other  worldly  cares 
and  duties  were  laid  upon  his  hands,  but  neither  grief 
nor  business  could  check  the  fertility  of  his  brain. 
Within  the  next  ten  years  he  wrote,  among  other  great 
plays,    Othello,   Lear,   Macbeth,    and    Coriolanus.      At 

1  Jonson's  famous  comedy  was  first  acted  in  1598,  "By  the  then  Lord 
Chamberlain  his  servants."  Knowell  is  designated  as  "  an  old  gentleman." 
The  Jonson  Folio  of  1692  names  as  follows  the  principal  comedians  who 
acted  in  that  piece :  "  Will.  Shakespeare.  Aug.  Philips.  Hen.  Condel.  Will. 
Slye.  Will.  Kempe.  Ric.  Burbadge.  Joh.  Hemings.  Tho.  Pope.  Chr.  Beston. 
Joh.  Duke." 


152  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

about  forty-eight  he  seems  to  have  disposed  of  his 
interest  in  the  two  London  theatres  with  which  he  had 
been  connected,  the  Blackfriars  and  the  Globe,  and 
shortly  afterwards,  his  work  as  we  possess  it  being 
well-nigh  completed,  he  retired  finally  to  his  Stratford 
home.  That  he  was  the  comrade  of  many  bright  spirits 
who  glittered  in  "the  spacious  times"  of  Elizabeth  sev- 
eral of  them  have  left  personal  testimony.  That  he 
was  the  king  of  them  all  is  shown  in  his  works.  The 
Sonnets  seem  to  disclose  that  there  was  a  mysterious, 
almost  a  tragical,  passage  in  his  life,  and  that  he  was 
called  to  bear  the  burden  of  a  great  and  perhaps  a 
calamitous  personal  grief  —  one  of  those  griefs,  which, 
being  caused  by  sinful  love,  are  endless  in  the  punish- 
ment they  entail.  Happily,  however,  no  antiquarian 
student  of  Shakespeare's  time  has  yet  succeeded  in  com- 
ing near  to  the  man.  While  he  was  in  London  he  used 
to  frequent  the  Falcon  Tavern,  in  Southwark,  and  the 
Mermaid,  and  he  lived  at  one  time  in  St.  Helen's  parish, 
Aldersgate,  and  at  another  time  in  Clink  Street,  South- 
wark. As  an  actor  his  name  has  been  associated  with 
his  characters  of  Adam,  Friar  Lawrence,  and  the  Ghost 
of  King  Hamlet,  and  a  contemporary  reference  declared 
him  "  excellent  in  the  quality  he  professes."  Some  of 
his  manuscripts,  it  is  possible,  perished  in  the  fire  that 
consumed  the  Globe  theatre  in  1613.  He  passed  his 
last  days  in  his  home  at  Stratford,  and  died  there,  some- 
what suddenly,  on  his  fifty-second  birthday.  That  event, 
it  may  be  worth  while  to  observe,  occurred  within  thirty- 
three  years  of  the  execution  of  Charles  the  First,  under 
the  Puritan  Commonwealth  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  The 
Puritan  spirit,  intolerant  of  the   play-house  and  of  all 


XII  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  153 

its  works,  must  then  have  been  gaining  formidable 
strength.  His  daughter  Susanna,  aged  thirty-three  at 
the  time  of  his  death,  survived  him  thirty-three  years. 
His  daughter  Judith,  aged  thirty-one  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  survived  him  forty-six  years.  The  whisper  of 
tradition  says  that  both  were  Puritans.  If  so  the  strange 
and  seemingly  unaccountable  disappearance  of  whatever 
play-house  papers  he  may  have  left  at  Stratford  should 
not  be  obscure.  This  suggestion  is  likely  to  have  been 
made  before ;  and  also  it  is  likely  to  have  been  supple- 
mented with  a  reference  to  the  great  fire  in  London  in 
1666  —  (which  in  consuming  St.  Paul's  cathedral  burned 
an  immense  quantity  of  books  and  manuscripts  that  had 
been  brought  from  all  the  threatened  parts  of  the  city 
and  heaped  beneath  its  arches  for  safety)  —  as  prob- 
ably the  final  and  effectual  holocaust  of  almost  every 
piece  of  print  or  writing  that  might  have  served  to 
illuminate  the  history  of  Shakespeare.  In  his  person- 
ality no  less  than  in  the  fathomless  resources  of  his 
genius  he  baffles  scrutiny  and  stands  for  ever  alone. 

"  Others  abide  our  question  ;  thou  art  free  : 
We  ask,  and  ask;  thou  smilest  and  art  still  — 
Out-topping  knowledge." 

It  is  impossible  to  convey  an  adequate  suggestion  of 
the  prodigious  and  overwhelming  sense  of  peace  that 
falls  upon  the  soul  of  the  pilgrim  in  Stratford  church. 
All  the  cares  and  struggles  and  trials  of  mortal  life,  all 
its  failures,  and  equally  all  its  achievements,  seem  there 
to  pass  utterly  out  of  remembrance.  It  is  not  now  an 
idle  reflection  that  "  the  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the 
grave."     No  power  of  human  thought  ever  rose  higher 


154  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

or  went  further  than  the  thought  of  Shakespeare.  No 
human  being,  using  the  best  weapons  of  intellectual 
achievement,  ever  accomplished  so  much.  Yet  here  he 
lies  —  who  was  once  so  great !  And  here  also,  gathered 
around  him  in  death,  lie  his  parents,  his  children,  his 
descendants,  and  his  friends.  For  him  and  for  them 
the  struggle  has  long  since  ended.  Let  no  man  fear  to 
tread  the  dark  pathway  that  Shakespeare  has  trodden 
before  him.  Let  no  man,  standing  at  this  grave,  and 
seeing  and  feeling  that  all  the  vast  labours  of  that 
celestial  genius  end  here  at  last  in  a  handful  of  dust, 
fret  and  grieve  any  more  over  the  puny  and  evanescent 
toils  of  to-day,  so  soon  to  be  buried  in  oblivion  !  In  the 
simple  performance  of  duty  and  in  the  life  of  the  affec- 
tions there  may  be  permanence  and  solace.  The  rest 
is  an  "  insubstantial  pageant."  It  breaks,  it  changes, 
it  dies,  it  passes  away,  it  is  forgotten ;  and  though  a 
great  name  be  now  and  then  for  a  little  while  remem- 
bered, what  can  the  remembrance  of  mankind  signify 
to  him  who  once  wore  it  ?  Shakespeare,  there  is  reason 
to  believe,  set  precisely  the  right  value  alike  upon 
contemporary  renown  and  the  homage  of  posterity. 
Though  he  went  forth,  as  the  stormy  impulses  of  his 
nature  drove  him,  into  the  great  world  of  London,  and 
there  laid  the  firm  hand  of  conquest  upon  the  spoils  t)i 
wealth  and  power,  he  came  back  at  last  to  the  peaceful 
home  of  his  childhood ;  he  strove  to  garner  up  the 
comforts  and  everlasting  treasures  of  love  at  his  hearth- 
stone ;  he  sought  an  enduring  monument  in  the  hearts 
of  friends  and  companions ;  and  so  he  won  for  his 
stately  sepulchre  the  garland  not  alone  of  glory  but  of 
affection.     Through   the   high  eastern  window  of   the 


XII 


SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  155 


chancel  of  Holy  Trinity  church  the  morning  sunshine, 
broken  into  many-coloured  light,  streams  in  upon  the 
grave  of  Shakespeare  and  gilds  his  bust  upon  the  wall 
above  it.  He  lies  close  by  the  altar,  and  every  circum- 
stance of  his  place  of  burial  is  eloquent  of  his  hold 
upon  the  affectionate  esteem  of  his  contemporaries. 
The  line  of  graves  beginning  at  the  north  wall  of  the 
chancel  and  extending  across  to  the  south  seems 
devoted  entirely  to  Shakespeare  and  his  family,  with 
but  one  exception.^  The  pavement  that  covers  them  is 
of  that  blue-gray  slate  or  freestone  which  in  England  is 
sometimes  called  black  marble.  In  the  first  grave  under 
the  north  wall  rests  Shakespeare's  wife.  The  next  is 
that  of  the  poet  himself,  bearing  the  world-famed  words 
of  blessing  and  imprecation.  Then  comes  the  grave  of 
Thomas  Nashe,  husband  to  Elizabeth  Hall,  the  poet's 
granddaughter,  who  died  April  4,  1647.  Next  is  that 
of  Dr.  John  Hall  (obiit  November  25,  1635),  husband  to 
his  daughter  Susanna,  and  close  beside  him  rests 
Susanna  herself,  who  was  buried  on  July  11,  1649. 
The  gravestones  are  laid  east  and  west,  and  all  but  one 
present  inscriptions.  That  one  is  under  the  south  wall, 
and  possibly  it  covers  the  dust  of  Judith — -Mrs.  Thomas 
Ouiney  —  the  youngest  daughter  of  Shakespeare,  who, 
surviving  her  three  children  and  thus  leaving  no 
descendants,  died  in  1662.  Upon  the  gravestone  of 
Susanna  an  inscription  has  been  intruded  commemora- 
tive of  Richard  Watts,  who  is  not,  however,  known 
to  have  had  any  relationship  with  either  Shakespeare 
or  his  descendants.     Shakespeare's  father,  who  died  in 

i"The  poet  knew,"  says  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  "that  as  a  tithe- 
owner  he  would  necessarily  be  buried  in  the  chancel." 


156  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

1601,  and  his  mother,  Mary  Arden,  who  died  in  1608, 
were  buried  in  or  near  this  church.  (The  register 
says,  under  Burials,  "  September  9,  1608,  Mayry  Shax- 
spere,  wydowe.")  His  infant  sisters  Joan,  Margaret, 
and  Anne,  and  his  brother  Richard,  who  died,  aged 
thirty-nine,  in  161 3,  may  also  have  been  laid  to  rest  in 
this  place.  Of  the  death  and  burial  of  his  brother 
Gilbert  there  is  no  record.  His  sister  Joan,  the  second 
—  Mrs.  Hart  —  would  naturally  have  been  placed  with 
her  relatives.  His  brother  Edmund,  dying  in  1607, 
aged  twenty-seven,  is  under  the  pavement  of  St. 
Saviour's  church  in  Southwark.  The  boy  Hamnet, 
dying  before  his  father  had  risen  into  local  eminence, 
rests,  probably,  in  an  undistinguished  grave  in  the 
churchyard.  (The  register  records  his  burial  on  August 
II,  1596.)  The  family  of  Shakespeare  seems  to  have 
been  short-lived  and  it  was  soon  extinguished.  He 
himself  died  at  fifty-two.  Judith's  children  perished 
young.  Susanna  bore  but  one  child  —  Elizabeth  — 
who  became  successively  Mrs.  Nashe  and  Lady  Bar- 
nard, and  she,  dying  in  1670,  was  buried  at  Abingdon, 
near  Oxford.  She  left  no  children  by  either  husband, 
and  in  her  the  race  of  Shakespeare  became  extinct. 
That  of  Anne  Hathaway  also  has  nearly  disappeared, 
the  last  living  descendant  of  the  Hathaways  being  Mrs. 
Baker,  the  present  occupant  of  Anne's  cottage  at  Shot- 
tery.  Thus,  one  by  one,  from  the  pleasant  gardened 
town  of  Stratford,  they  went  to  take  up  their  long  abode 
in  that  old  church,  which  was  ancient  even  in  their 
infancy,  and  which,  watching  through  the  centuries  in 
its  monastic  solitude  on  the  shore  of  Avon,  has  seen 
their  lands  and  houses  devastated  by  flood  and  fire,  the 


XII 


SHAKESPEARE'S    HOME  157 


places  that  knew  them  changed  by  the  tooth  of  time, 
and  almost  all  the  associations  of  their  lives  obliterated 
by  the  improving  hand  of  destruction. 

One  of  the  oldest  and  most  interesting  Shakespearean 
documents  in  existence  is  the  narrative,  by  a  traveller 
named  Dowdall,  of  his  observations  in  Warwickshire, 
and  of  his  visit,  on  April  lO,  1693,  to  Stratford  church. 
He  describes  therein  the  bust  and  the  tombstone  of 
Shakespeare,  and  he  adds  these  remarkable  words : 
"  The  clerk  that  showed  me  this  church  is  above  eighty 
years  old.  He  says  that  not  one,  for  fear  of  the  curse 
above  said,  dare  touch  his  gravestone,  though  his  wife 
and  daughter  did  earnestly  desire  to  be  laid  in  the  same 
grave  with  him."  Writers  in  modern  days  have  been 
pleased  to  disparage  that  inscription  and  to  conjecture 
that  it  was  the  work  of  a  sexton  and  not  of  the  poet ; 
but  no  one  denies  that  it  has  accomplished  its  j^urpose 
in  preserving  the  sanctity  of  Shakespeare's  rest.  Its 
rugged  strength,  its  simple  pathos,  its  fitness,  and  its 
sincerity  make  it  felt  as  unquestionably  the  utterance 
of  Shakespeare  himself,  when  it  is  read  upon  the  slab 
that  covers  him.  There  the  musing  traveller  full  well 
conceives  how  dearly  the  poet  must  have  loved  the 
beautiful  scenes  of  his  birthplace,  and  with  what  intense 
longing  he  must  have  desired  to  sleep  undisturbed  in 
the  most  sacred  spot  in  their  bosom.  He  doubtless 
had  some  premonition  of  his  approaching  death.  Three 
months  before  it  came  he  made  his  will.  A  little  later 
he  saw  the  marriage  of  his  younger  daughter.  Within 
less  than  a  month  of  his  death  he  executed  the  will, 
and  thus  set  his  affairs  in  order.  His  handwriting  in 
the    three    signatures    to  that  paper  conspicuously  ex- 


158  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

hibits  the  uncertainty  and  lassitude  of  shattered  nerves. 
He  was  probably  quite  worn  out.  Within  the  space,  at 
the  utmost,  of  twenty-five  years,  he  had  written  thirty- 
seven  plays,  one  hundred  and  fifty-four  sonnets,  and 
two  or  more  long  poems ;  had  passed  through  much 
and  painful  toil  and  through  bitter  sorrow ;  had  made 
his  fortune  as  author  and  actor ;  and  had  superintended, 
to  excellent  advantage,  his  property  in  London  and  his 
large  interests  in  Stratford  and  its  neighbourhood.  The 
proclamation  of  health  with  which  the  will  begins  was 
doubtless  a  formality  of  legal  custom.  The  story  that 
he  died  of  drinking  too  hard  at  a  merry  meeting  with 
Drayton  and  Ben  Jonson  is  idle  gossip.  If  in  those 
last  days  of  fatigue  and  presentiment  he  wrote  the 
epitaph  that  has  ever  since  marked  his  grave,  it  would 
naturally  have  taken  the  plainest  fashion  of  speech. 
Such  is  its  character ;  and  no  pilgrim  to  the  poet's 
shrine  could  wish  to  see  it  changed :  — 

"  Good  frend  for  lesvs  sake  forbeare, 
To  digg  the  dvst  encloased  heare ; 
Blese  be  ye  man  yt  spares  thes  stones 
And  cvrst  be  he  yt  moves  my  bones." 

It  was  once  surmised  that  the  poet's  solicitude  lest 
his  bones  might  be  disturbed  in  death  grew  out  of  his 
intention  to  take  with  him  into  the  grave  a  confession 
that  the  works  which  now  follow  him  were  written 
by  another  hand.  Persons  have  been  found  who  actu- 
ally believe  that  a  man  who  was  great  enough  to  write 
Hamlet  could  be  little  enough  to  feel  ashamed  of  it, 
and,  accordingly,  that  Shakespeare  was  only  hired  to 
play  at  authorship,  as  a  screen  for  the  actual  author.     It 


XII  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  159 

might  not,  perhaps,  be  strange  that  a  desire  for  singu- 
larity, which  is  one  of  the  worst  Hterary  crazes  of  this 
capricious  age,  should  prompt  to  the  rejection  of  the 
conclusive  and  overwhelming  testimony  to  Shakespeare's 
genius  that  has  been  left  by  Shakespeare's  contempo- 
raries, and  that  shines  forth  in  all  that  is  known  of  his 
life.  It  is  strange  that  a  doctrine  should  get  itself 
asserted  which  is  subversive  of  common  reason  and 
contradictory  to  every  known  law  of  the  human  mind. 
This  conjectural  confession  of  poetic  imposture  has 
never  been  exhumed.  The  grave  is  known  to  have 
been  disturbed,  in  1796,  when  alterations  were  made 
in  the  church, ^  and  there  came  a  time  in  the  present 
century  when,  as  they  were  making  repairs  in  the  chan- 
cel pavement  (the  chancel  was  renovated  in  1835),  a 
rift  was  accidently  made  in  the  Shakespeare  vault. 
Through  this,  though  not  without  misgiving,  the  sexton 
peeped  in  upon  the  poet's  remains.  He  saw  nothing 
but  dust. 

The  antique  font  from  which  the  infant  Shakespeare 
may  have  received  the  water  of  Christian  baptism  is 
still  preserved  in  this  church.  It  was  thrown  aside  and 
replaced  by  a  new  one  about  the  middle  of  the  seven- 

1  It  was  the  opinion  —  not  conclusive  but  interesting  —  of  the  late  J.  O. 
Halliwell-Phillipps  that  at  one  or  other  of  these  "restorations  "  the  original 
tombstone  of  Shakespeare  was  removed  and  another  one,  from  the  yard 
of  a  modern  stone-mason,  put  in  its  place.  Dr.  Ingleby,  in  his  book  on 
Shakespeare' s  Bones,  1883,  asserts  that  the  original  stone  was  removed. 
I  have  compared  Shakespeare's  tombstone  with  that  of  his  wife,  and  with 
others  in  the  chancel,  but  I  have  not  found  the  discrepancy  observed  by 
Mr.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  and  I  think  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the 
original  tombstone  has  ever  been  disturbed.  The  letters  upon  it  were, 
probably,  cut  deeper  in  1835. 


160 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


teenth  century.  Many  years  afterward  it  was  found  in 
the  charnel-house.  When  that  was  destroyed,  in  1800, 
it  was  cast  into  the  churchyard.  In  later  times  the 
parish  clerk  used  it  as  a  trough  to  his  pump.  It  passed 
then  through  the  hands  of   several  successive  owners, 


r-^ 


-_J 


"^sr 


"^ 


/^z 


Remains  of  the  old  Font  at  ivhich,  probably,  Shakespeare  was  christened, 
now  in  the  Nave  of  Stratford  Church. 

till  at  last,  in  days  that  had  learned  to  value  the  past 
and  the  associations  connected  with  its  illustrious  names, 
it  found  its  way  back  again  to  the  sanctuary  from  which 
it  had  suffered  such  a  rude  expulsion.  It  is  still  a  hand- 
some stone,  though  broken,  soiled,  and  marred. 

On  the  north  wall  of  the  chancel,  above  his  grave 


XII 


SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  161 


and  near  to  "  the  American  window,"  is  placed  Shake- 
speare's monument.  It  is  known  to  have  been  erected 
there  within  seven  years  after  his  death.  It  consists  of 
a  half-length  effigy,  placed  beneath  a  fretted  arch,  with 
entablature  and  pedestal,  between  two  Corinthian  col- 
umns of  black  marble,  gilded  at  base  and  top.  Above 
the  entablature  appear  the  armorial  bearings  of  Shake- 
speare —  a  pointed  spear  on  a  bend  sable  and  a  silver 
falcon  on  a  tasselled  helmet  supporting  a  spear.  Over 
this  heraldic  emblem  is  a  death's-head,  and  on  each 
side  of  it  sits  a  carved  cherub,  one  holding  a  spade,  the 
other  an  inverted  torch.  In  front  of  the  effigy  is  a 
cushion,  upon  which  both  hands  rest,  holding  a  scroll 
and  a  pen.  Beneath  is  an  inscription  in  Latin  and 
English,  supposed  to  have  been  furnished  by  the  poet's 
son-in-law.  Dr.  Hall.  The  bust  was  cut  by  Gerard 
Jonson,  a  native  of  Amsterdam  and  by  occupation  a 
"tomb-maker,"  who  lived  in  Southwark  and  possibly 
had  seen  the  poet.  The  material  is  a  soft  stone,  and 
the  work,  when  first  set  up,  was  painted  in  the  colours 
of  life.  Its  peculiarities  indicate  that  it  was  copied 
from  a  mask  of  the  features  taken  after  death.  Some 
persons  believe  (upon  slender  and  dubious  testimony) 
that  this  mask  has  since  been  found,  and  busts  of 
Shakespeare  have  been  based  upon  it,  by  W.  R. 
O'Donovan  and  by  William  Page.  In  September,  1764, 
John  Ward,  grandfather  of  Mrs.  Siddons,  having  come 
to  Stratford  with  a  theatrical  company,  gave  a  perform- 
ance of  Othello,  in  the  Guildhall,  and  devoted  its  pro- 
ceeds to  reparation  of  the  Gerard  Jonson  effigy,  then 
somewhat  damaged  by  time.  The  original  colours  were 
then  carefully  restored  and  freshened.     In  1793,  under 


Shakespeare^ s  Monument. 


CHAP.  XII  ■        SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  163 

the  direction  of  Malone,  this  bust,  together  with  the 
image  of  John-a-Combe  —  a  recumbent  statue  upon  a 
tomb  close  to  the  east  wall  of  the  chancel  —  was  coated 
with  white  paint.  From  that  plight  it  was  extricated, 
in  1 86 1,  by  the  assiduous  skill  of  Simon  Collins,  who 
immersed  it  in  a  bath  which  took  off  the  white  paint 
and  restored  the  colours.  The  eyes  are  painted  light 
hazel,  the  hair  and  pointed  beard  auburn,  the  face  and 
hands  flesh-tint.  The  dress  consists  of  a  scarlet  doub- 
let, with  a  rolling  collar,  closely  buttoned  down  the 
front,  worn  under  a  loose  black  gown  without  sleeves. 
The  upper  part  of  the  cushion  is  green,  the  lower  part 
crimson,  and  this  object  is  ornamented  with  gilt  tassels. 
The  stone  pen  that  used  to  be  in  the  right  hand  of  the 
bust  was  taken  from  it,  toward  the  end  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, by  a  young  Oxford  student,  and,  being  dropped  by 
him  upon  the  pavement,  was  broken.  A  quill  pen  has 
been  put  in  its  place.  This  is  the  inscription  beneath 
the  bust :  — 

Ivdicio  Pylivm,  genio  Socratem,  arte  Maronem, 
Terra  tegit,  popvlvs  maeret,  Olympvs  habet. 

Stay,  passenger,  why  goest  thov  by  so  fast  ? 
Read,  if  thov  canst,  whom  enviovs  Death  hath  plast 
Within  this  monvment :   Shakspeare  :  with  whome 
Qvick  Natvre  dide ;  whose  name  doth  deck  ys  tombe 
Far  more  than  cost ;  sieth  all  yt  he  hath  writt 
Leaves  living  art  bvt  page  to  serve  his  witt. 

Obiit  Ano.  Doi.  1616.     ^tatis  53.  Die.  23.  Ap. 

The  erection  of  the  old  castles,  cathedrals,  monas- 
teries, and  churches  of  England  was  accomplished, 
little  by  little,   with   laborious  toil   protracted  through 


164  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

many  years.  Stratford  church,  probably  more  than 
seven  centuries  old,  presents  a  mixture  of  architectural 
styles,  in  which  Saxon  simplicity  and  Norman  grace  are 
beautifully  mingled.  Different  parts  of  the  structure 
were  built  at  different  times.  It  is  fashioned  in  the 
customary  crucial  form,  with  a  square  tower,  an  octa- 
gon stone  spire,  (erected  in  1764,  to  replace  a  more 
ancient  one,  made  of  oak  and  covered  with  lead),  and  a 
fretted  battlement  all  around  its  roof.  Its  windows  are 
diversified,  but  mostly  Gothic.  The  approach  to  it  is 
across  a  churchyard  thickly  sown  with  graves,  through 
a  lovely  green  avenue  of  lime-trees,  leading  to  a  porch 
on  its  north  side.  This  avenue  of  foliage  is  said  to  be 
the  copy  of  one  that  existed  there  in  Shakespeare's  day, 
through  which  he  must  often  have  walked,  and  through 
which  at  last  he  was  carried  to  his  grave.  Time  itself 
has  fallen  asleep  in  that  ancient  place.  The  low  sob  of 
the  organ  only  deepens  the  awful  sense  of  its  silence 
and  its  dreamless  repose.  Yews  and  elms  grow  in  the 
churchyard,  and  many  a  low  tomb  and  many  a  leaning 
stone  are  there,  in  the  shadow,  gray  with  moss  and 
mouldering  with  age.  Birds  have  built  their  nests  in 
many  crevices  in  the  timeworn  tower,  round  which  at 
sunset  you  may  see  them  circle,  with  chirp  of  greeting 
or  with  call  of  anxious  discontent.  Near  by  flows  the 
peaceful  river,  reflecting  the  gray  spire  in  its  dark, 
silent,  shining  waters.  In  the  long  and  lonesome  mead- 
ows beyond  it  the  primroses  stand  in  their  golden  ranks 
among  the  clover,  and  the  frilled  and  fluted  bell  of  the 
cowslip,  hiding  its  single  drop  of  blood  in  its  bosom, 
closes  its  petals  as  the  night  comes  down. 

Northward,  at  a  little  distance  from  the  Church  of 


XII  SHAKESPEARE'S   HOME  165 

the    Holy    Trinity,   stands,   on    the   west   bank    of    the 
Avon,  the  building  that  will  always  be  famous  as  the 
Shakespeare  Memorial.     The  idea  of  the  Memorial  was 
suggested  in  1864,  incidentally  to  the  ceremonies  which 
then   commemorated    the   three-hundredth    anniversary 
of  the  poet's  birth.     Ten  years  later  the  site  for  this 
structure  was  presented  to  the  town  by  Charles  Edward 
Flower,  one  of  its  most  honoured  inhabitants.     Contri- 
butions of  money  were  then   asked,  and  were   given. 
Americans   as   well    as    Englishmen    contributed.     On 
April  23,  1877,  the  first  stone  of  the  Memorial  was  laid. 
On  April  23,    1880,  the  building  was  dedicated.     The 
fabric  comprises    a  theatre,   a    library,   and  a   picture- 
gallery.     In  the  theatre  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  are 
annually  represented,  in  a  manner  as  nearly  perfect  as 
possible.     In  the  library  and  picture-gallery  are  to  be 
assembled  all  the  books  upon  Shakespeare  that  have 
been  published,  and  all  the  choice  paintings  that  can 
be  obtained  to  illustrate  his  life  and  his  works.     As  the 
years  pass  this  will  naturally  become  a  principal  deposi- 
tory  of    Shakespearean    objects.     A   dramatic    college 
may   grow    up,    in    association    with    the    Shakespeare 
theatre.     The  gardens  that  surround  the  Memorial  will 
augment  their  loveliness  in  added  expanse  of  foliage 
and  in  greater  wealth  of  floral  luxuriance.     The  mellow 
tinge  of  age  will  soften  the  bright  tints  of  the  red  brick 
that  mainly  composes  the  building.     On  its  cone-shaped 
turrets  ivy  will  clamber  and  moss  will  nestle.     When  a 
few  generations  have  passed,  the  old  town  of  Stratford 
will  have  adopted  this  now  youthful  stranger  into  the 
race  of   her  venerated  antiquities.     The    same    air   of 
poetic  mystery  that  rests  now  upon  his  cottage  and  his 


166 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP.   XII 


grave  will  diffuse  itself  around  his  Memorial ;  and  a 
remote  posterity,  looking  back  to  the  men  and  the 
ideas  of  to-day,  will  remember  with  grateful  pride  that 
English-speaking  people  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
although  they  could  confer  no  honour  upon  the  great 
name  of  Shakespeare,  yet  honoured  themselves  in 
consecrating  this  votive  temple  to  his  memory. 


CHAPTER    XIII 


UP    TO    LONDON 


1882 


BOUT  the  middle  of  the  night  the  great 
ship  comes  to  a  pause,  off  the  coast  of 
Ireland,  and,  looking  forth  across  the 
black  waves  and  through  the  rifts  in  the 
rising  mist,  we  see  the  low  and  lonesome 
verge  of  that  land  of  trouble  and  misery.  A  beautiful 
white  light  flashes  now  and  then  from  the  shore,  and  at 
intervals  the  mournful  booming  of  a  solemn  bell  floats 
over  the  sea.  Soon  is  heard  the  rolling  click  of  oars,  and 
then  two  or  three  dusky  boats  glide  past  the  ship,  and 
hoarse  voices  hail  and  answer.  A  few  stars  are  visible 
in  the  hazy  sky,  and  the  breeze  from  the  land  brings 
off,  in  fitful  puffs,  the  fragrant  balm  of  grass  and  clover, 
mingled  with  the  salt  odours  of  sea-weed  and  slimy 
rocks.  There  is  a  sense  of  mystery  over  the  whole  wild 
scene ;  but  we  realise  now  that  human  companionship 
is  near,  and  that  the  long  and  lonely  ocean  voyage  is 
ended. 

Travellers  who  make  the  run  from  Liverpool  to  Lon- 

167 


CHAP.  XIII  UP  TO   LONDON  169 

don  by  the  Midland  Railway  pass  through  the  vale  of 
Derby  and  skirt  around  the  stately  Peak  that  Scott  has 
commemorated  in  his  novel  of  Pcvcril.  It  is  a  more 
rugged  country  than  is  seen  in  the  transit  by  the  North- 
Western  road,  but  not  more  beautiful.  You  see  the 
storied  mountain,  in  its  delicacy  of  outline  and  its  airy 
magnificence  of  poise,  soaring  into  the  sky  —  its  summit 
almost  lost  in  the  smoky  haze  —  and  you  wind  through 
hillside  pastures  and  meadow-lands  that  are  curiously 
intersected  with  low,  zigzag  stone  walls;  and  constantly, 
as  the  scene  changes,  you  catch  glimpses  of  green  lane 
and  shining  river ;  of  dense  copses  that  cast  their  cool 
shadow  on  the  moist  and  gleaming  emerald  sod ;  of 
long  white  roads  that  stretch  away  like  cathedral  aisles 
and  are  lost  beneath  the  leafy  arches  of  elm  and  oak ; 
of  little  church  towers  embowered  in  ivy ;  of  thatched 
cottages  draped  with  roses ;  of  dark  ravines,  luxuriant 
with  a  wild  profusion  of  rocks  and  trees ;  and  of  golden 
grain  that  softly  waves  and  whispers  in  the  summer 
wind;  while,  all  around,  the  grassy  banks  and  ghmmer- 
ing  meadows  are  radiant  with  yellow  daisies,  and  with 
that  wonderful  scarlet  of  the  poppy  that  gives  an  almost 
human  glow  of  life  and  loveliness  to  the  whole  face  of 
England.  After  some  hours  of  such  a  pageant  —  so 
novel,  so  fascinating,  so  fleeting,  so  stimulative  of  eager 
curiosity  and  poetic  desire  —  it  is  a  relief  at  last  to 
stand  in  the  populous  streets  and  among  the  grim 
houses  of  London,  with  its  surging  tides  of  life,  and  its 
turmoil  of  effort,  conflict,  exultation,  and  misery.  How 
strange  it  seems  —  yet,  at  the  same  time,  how  homelike 
and  familiar !  There  soars  aloft  the  great  dome  of 
St.  Paul's  cathedral,  with  its  golden  cross  that  flashes 


"IS 


^l^  •  . 


^3 


^ 

__"> 

^ 

» 

^ 


^ 


CHAP.  XIII  UP  TO   LONDON  171 

in  the  sunset!  There  stands  the  Victoria  tower  —  fit 
emblem  of  the  true  royalty  of  the  sovereign  whose  name 
it  bears.  And  there,  more  lowly  but  more  august,  rise 
the  sacred  turrets  of  the  Abbey.  It  is  the  same  old 
London  —  the  great  heart  of  the  modern  world  —  the 
great  city  of  our  reverence  and  love.  As  the  wanderer 
writes  these  words  he  hears  the  plashing  of  the  foun- 
tains in  Trafalgar  Square  and  the  evening  chimes  that 
peal  out  from  the  spire  of  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields,  and 
he  knows  himself  once  more  at  the  shrine  of  his  youth- 
ful dreams. 

To  the  observant  stranger  in  London  few  sights  can 
be  more  impressive  than  those  that  illustrate  the  singu- 
lar manner  in  which  the  life  of  the  present  encroaches 
upon  the  memorials  of  the  past.  Old  Temple  Bar  has 
gone,  —  a  sculptured  grififin,  at  the  junction  of  Fleet 
Street  and  the  Strand,  denoting  where  once  it  stood. 
(It  has  been  removed  to  Theobald's  Park,  near  Wal- 
tham,  and  is  now  the  lodge  gate  of  the  grounds  of  Sir 
Henry  Meux.)  The  Midland  Railway  trains  dash  over 
what  was  once  St.  Pancras  churchyard  —  the  burial- 
place  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft  and  William  Godwin,  and 
of  many  other  British  worthies  —  and  passengers  look- 
ing from  the  carriages  may  see  the  children  of  the 
neighbourhood  sporting  among  the  few  tombs  that  yet 
remain  in  that  despoiled  cemetery.  Dolly's  Chop- 
House,  intimately  associated  with  the  wits  of  the  reign 
of  Queen  Anne,  has  been  destroyed.  The  ancient  tav- 
ern of  The  Cock,  immortalised  by  Tennyson,  in  his 
poem  of  IV///  Waterproof  s  JSIonoIogue,  is  soon  to 
disappear,  —  with  its  singular  wooden  vestibule  that 
existed  before  the  time  of  the  Plague  and  that  escaped 


172  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  xiii 

the  great  fire  of  1666.  On  the  site  of  Northumberland 
House  stands  the  Grand  Hotel.  The  gravestones  that 
formerly  paved  the  precinct  of  Westminster  Abbey  have 
been  removed,  to  make  way  for  grassy  lawns  intersected 
with  pathways.  In  Southwark,  across  the  Thames, 
the  engine-room  of  the  brewery  of  Messrs.  Barclay  & 
Perkins  occupies  the  site  of  the  Globe  Theatre,  in  which 
most  of  Shakespeare's  plays  were  first  produced.  One 
of  the  most  venerable  and  beautiful  churches  in  London, 
that  of  St.  Bartholomew  the  Great,  —  a  gray,  moulder- 
ing temple,  of  the  twelfth  century,  hidden  away  in  a 
corner  of  Smithfield,  —  is  desecrated  by  the  irruption 
of  an  adjacent  shop,  the  staircase  hall  of  which  breaks 
cruelly  into  the  sacred  edifice  and  impends  above  the 
altar.  On  July  12,  1882,  the  present  writer,  walk- 
ing in  the  churchyard  of  St.  Paul's,  Covent  Garden, 
—  the  sepulchre  of  William  Wycherley,  Robert  Wilks, 
Charles  Macklin,  Joseph  Haines,  Thomas  King,  Samuel 
Butler,  Thomas  Southerne,  Edward  Shuter,  Dr.  Arne, 
Thomas  Davies,  Edward  Kynaston,  Richard  Estcourt, 
William  Havard,  and  many  other  renowned  votaries  of 
literature  and  the  stage,  —  found  workmen  building  a 
new  wall  to  sustain  the  enclosure,  and  almost  every 
stone  in  the  cemetery  uprooted  and  leaning  against  the 
adjacent  houses.  Those  monuments,  it  was  said,  would 
be  replaced ;  but  it  was  impossible  not  to  consider  the 
chances  of  error  in  a  new  mortuary  deal  —  and  the 
grim  witticism  of  Rufus  Choate,  about  dilating  with 
the  wrong  emotion,  came  then  into  remembrance,  and 
did  not  come  amiss. 

Facts  such  as  these,  however,  bid  us  remember  that 
even    the   relics   of   the    past   are    passing   away,    and 


f: 


^1  m 


\\x>§^-\^' 


1  )• 


-^TF^''-. 


^5%^' 


17+  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

that  cities,  unlike  human  creatures,  may  grow  to  be  so 
old  that  at  last  they  will  become  new.  It  is  not  wonder- 
ful that  London  should  change  its  aspect  from  one 
decade  to  another,  as  the  living  surmount  and  obliterate 
the  dead.  Thomas  Sutton's  Charter-House  School, 
founded  in  1611,  when  Shakespeare  and  Ben  Jonson 
were  still  writing,  was  reared  upon  ground  in  which 
several  thousand  corses  were  buried,  during  the  time  of 
the  Indian  pestilence  of  1348;  and  it  still  stands  and 
flourishes  —  though  not  as  vigorously  now  as  might  be 
wished.  Nine  thousand  new  houses,  it  is  said,  are  built 
in  the  great  capital  every  year,  and  twenty-eight  miles 
of  new  street  are  thus  added  to  it.  On  a  Sunday  I 
drove  for  three  hours  through  the  eastern  part  of  Lon- 
don without  coming  upon  a  single  trace  of  the  open 
fields.  On  the  west,  all  the  region  from  Kensington  to 
Richmond  is  settled  for  most  part  of  the  way ;  while 
northward  the  city  is  stretching  its  arms  toward  Hamp- 
stead,  Highgate,  and  tranquil  and  blooming  Finchley. 
Truly  the  spirit  of  this  age  is  in  strong  contrast  with 
that  of  the  time  of  Henry  the  Eighth  when  (1530), 
to  prevent  the  increasing  size  of  London,  all  new 
buildings  were  forbidden  to  be  erected  "  where  no 
former  hath  been  known  to  have  been."  The  march 
of  improvement  nowadays  carries  everything  before 
it :  even  British  conservatism  is  at  some  points  giving 
way  :  and,  noting  the  changes  that  have  occurred  here 
within  only  five  years,  I  am  persuaded  that  those  who 
would  see  what  remains  of  the  London  of  which  they 
have  read  and  dreamed  —  the  London  of  Dryden  and 
Pope,  of  Addison,  Sheridan,  and  Byron,  of  Betterton, 
Garrick,    and    Edmund    Kean  —  will,    as    time   passes, 


XIII 


Ur  TO   LONDON 


175 


find  more  and  more  difficulty  both  in  tracing  the  foot- 
steps of  fame,  and  in  finding  that  sympathetic,  rev- 
erent spirit  which  hallows  the  relics  of  genius  and 
renown. 


ii' 


J'&S 


CHAPTER  XIV 


OLD  CHURCHES  OF  LONDON 


IGHT-SEEING,  merely  for  its  own  sake, 
is  not  to  be  commended.  Hundreds  of 
persons  roam  through  the  storied  places 
of  England,  carrying  nothing  away  but  the 
bare  sense  of  travel.  It  is  not  the  spec- 
tacle that  benefits,  but  the  meaning  of  the  spectacle.  In 
the  great  temples  of  religion,  in  those  wonderful  cathe- 
drals that  are  the  glory  of  the  old  world,  we  ought  to  feel, 
not  merely  the  physical  beauty  but  the  perfect,  illimita- 
ble faith,  the  passionate,  incessant  devotion,  which  alone 
made  them  possible.  The  cold  intellect  of  a  sceptical 
age,  like  the  present,  could  never  create  such  a  majestic 
cathedral  as  that  of  Canterbury.  Not  till  the  pilgrim 
feels  this  truth  has  he  really  learned  the  lesson  of  such 
places,  —  to  keep  alive  in  his  heart  the  capacity  of  self- 
sacrifice,  of  toil  and  of  tears,  for  the  grandeur  and 
beauty  of  the  spiritual  life.  At  the  tombs  of  great  men 
we  ought  to  feel  something  more  than  a  consciousness 
of  the  crumbling  clay  that  moulders  within,  —  some- 
thing more  even   than   knowledge  of  their  memorable 

176 


CHAi'.  XIV  OLD   CHURCHES   OF   LONDON  177 

words  and  deeds :  we  ought,  as  we  ponder  on  the  cer- 
tainty of  death  and  the  evanescence  of  earthly  things, 
to  realise  that  art  at  least  is  permanent,  and  that  no 
creature  can  be  better  employed  than  in  noble  effort  to 
make  the  soul  worthy  of  immortality.  The  relics  of  the 
past,  contemplated  merely  because  they  are  relics,  are 
nothing.  You  tire,  in  this  old  land,  of  the  endless  array 
of  ruined  castles  and  of  wasting  graves ;  you  sicken  at 
the  thought  of  the  mortality  of  a  thousand  years,  decay- 
ing at  your  feet,  and  you  long  to  look  again  on  roses 
and  the  face  of  childhood,  the  ocean  and  the  stars. 
But  not  if  the  meaning  of  the  past  is  truly  within  your 
sympathy  ;  not  if  you  perceive  its  associations  as  feeling 
equally  with  knowledge ;  not  if  you  truly  know  that  its 
lessons  are  not  of  death  but  of  life !  To-day  builds  over 
the  ruins  of  yesterday,  as  well  in  the  soul  of  man  as  on 
the  vanishing  cities  that  mark  his  course.  There  need 
be  no  regret  that  the  present  should,  in  this  sense, 
obliterate  the  past. 

Much,  however,  as  London  has  changed,  and  con- 
stantly as  it  continues  to  change,  many  objects  still 
remain,  and  long  will  continue  to  remain,  that  startle 
and  impress  the  sensitive  mind.  Through  all  its  wide 
compass,  by  night  and  day,  flows  and  beats  a  turbulent, 
resounding  tide  of  activity,  and  hundreds  of  trivial  and 
vacuous  persons,  sordid,  ignorant,  and  commonplace 
tramp  to  and  fro  amid  its  storied  antiquities,  heedless  of 
their  existence.  Through  such  surroundings,  but  find- 
ing here  and  there  a  sympathetic  guide  or  a  friendly 
suggestion,  the  explorer  must  make  his  way,  —  lonely 
in  the  crowd,  and  walking  like  one  who  lives  in  a  dream. 
Yet  he  never  will  drift  in  vain  through  a  city  like  this. 


178  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

I  went  one  night  into  the  cloisters  of  Westminster 
Abbey  —  that  part,  the  South  Walk,  which  is  still  acces- 
sible after  the  gates  have  been  closed.  The  stars 
shone  down  upon  the  blackening  walls  and  glimmering 
windows  of  the  great  cathedral ;  the  grim,  mysterious 
arches  were  dimly  lighted ;  the  stony  pathways,  stretch- 
ing away  beneath  the  venerable  building,  seemed  to  lose 
themselves  in  caverns  of  darkness ;  not  a  sound  was 
heard  but  the  faint  rustling  of  the  grass  upon  the 
cloister  green.  Every  stone  there  is  the  mark  of  a 
sepulchre  ;  every  breath  of  the  night  wind  seemed  the 
whisper  of  a  gliding  ghost.  There,  among  the  crowded 
graves,  rest  Anne  Oldfield  and  Anne  Bracegirdle,  —  in 
Queen  Anne's  reign  such  brilliant  luminaries  of  the 
stage,  —  and  there  was  buried  the  dust  of  Aaron  Hill, 
poet  and  dramatist,  once  manager  of  Drury  Lane,  who 
wrote  The  Fair  Inconstant  for  Barton  Booth,  and  some 
notably  felicitous  love-songs.  There,  too,  are  the  relics 
of  Susanna  Maria  Arne  (Mrs.  Theo.  Gibber),  Mrs.  Dan- 
cer, Thomas  Betterton,  and  Spranger  Barry.  Sitting 
upon  the  narrow  ledge  that  was  the  monks'  rest,  I  could 
touch,  close  at  hand,  the  tomb  of  a  mitred  abbot,  while 
at  my  feet  was  the  great  stone  that  covers  twenty-six 
monks  of  Westminster  who  perished  by  the  Plague 
nearly  six  hundred  years  ago.  It  would  scarcely  be 
believed  that  the  doors  of  dwellings  open  upon  that 
gloomy  spot ;  that  ladies  may  sometimes  be  seen  tend- 
ing flowers  upon  the  ledges  that  roof  those  cloister 
walks.  Yet  so  it  is  ;  and  in  such  a  place,  at  such  a  time, 
you  comprehend  better  than  before  the  self-centred,  se- 
rious, ruminant,  romantic  character  of  the  English  mind, 
—  which  loves,  more  than  anything  else  in  the  world, 


XIV  OLD   CHURCHES   OF   LONDON  179 

the  privacy  of  august  surroundings  and  a  sombre  and 
stately  solitude.  It  hardly  need  be  said  that  you  like- 
wise obtain  here  a  striking  sense  of  the  power  of  con- 
trast. I  was  again  aware  of  this,  a  little  later,  when, 
seeing  a  dim  light  in  St.  Margaret's  church  near  by,  I 
entered  that  old  temple  and  found  the  men  of  the  choir 
at  their  rehearsal,  and  presently  observed  on  the  wall  a 
brass  plate  which  announces  that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
was  buried  here,  in  the  chancel,  —  after  being  decapi- 
tated for  high  treason  in  the  Palace  Yard  outside. 
Such  things  are  the  surprises  of  this  historic  capital. 
This  inscription  begs  the  reader  to  remember  Raleigh's 
virtues  as  well  as  his  faults,  —  a  plea,  surely,  that  every 
man  might  well  wish  should  be  made  for  himself  at  last. 
I  thought  of  the  verses  that  the  old  warrior-poet  is  said 
to  have  left  in  his  Bible,  when  they  led  him  out  to 
die  — 

"  Even  such  is  time  ;  that  takes  in  trust 

Our  youth,  our  joys,  our  all  we  have. 
And  pays  us  nought  but  age  and  dust ; 

Which,  in  the  dark  and  silent  grave, 
When  we  have  wandered  all  our  ways, 

Shuts  up  the  story  of  our  days.  — 
But  from  this  earth,  this  grave,  this  dust, 

My  God  shall  raise  me  up,  I  trust."  - 

This  church  contains  a  window  commemorative  of 
Raleigh,  presented  by  Americans,  and  inscribed  with 
these  lines,  by  Lowell  — 

"The  New  World's  sons,  from  England's  breast  we  drew 
Such  milk  as  bids  remember  whence  we  came  ; 
Proud  of  her  past,  wherefrom  our  future  grew, 
This  window  we  inscribe  with  Raleigh's  name." 


ISO  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

It  also  contains  a  window  commemorative  of  Caxton, 
presented  by  the  printers  and  publishers  of  London, 
which  is  inscribed  with  these  lines  by  Tennyson  — 

"  Thy  prayer  was  Light  —  more  Light  —  while  Time  shall  last, 
Thou  sawest  a  glory  growing  on  the  night, 
But  not  the  shadows  which  that  light  would  cast 
Till  shadows  vanish  in  the  Light  of  Light." 

In  St.  Margaret's  —  a  storied  haunt,  for  shining 
names  alike  of  nobles  and  poets  —  was  also  buried  John 
Skelton,  another  of  the  old  bards  (obiit  1529),  the  enemy 
and  satirist  of  Cardinal  Wolsey  and  Sir  Thomas  More, 
one  of  whom  he  described  as  "  madde  Amaleke,"  and 
the  other  as  "  dawcock  doctor."  Their  renown  has 
managed  to  survive  those  terrific  shafts ;  but  at  least 
this  was  a  falcon  who  flew  at  eagles.  Here  the  poet 
Campbell  was  married,  —  October  11,  1803.  Such  old 
churches  as  this  —  guarding  so  well  their  treasures  of 
history  —  are,  in  a  special  sense,  the  traveller's  bless- 
ings. At  St.  Giles's,  Cripplegate,  the  janitor  is  a 
woman ;  and  she  will  point  out  to  you  the  lettered  stone 
that  formerly  marked  the  grave  of  Milton.  It  is  in  the 
nave,  but  it  has  been  moved  to  a  place  about  twelve 
feet  from  its  original  position,  —  the  remains  of  the  illus- 
trious poet  being,  in  fact,  beneath  the  floor  of  a  pew,  on 
the  left  of  the  central  aisle,  about  the  middle  of  the 
church:  albeit  there  is  a  story,  possibly  true,  that,  on 
an  occasion  when  this  church  was  repaired,  in  August, 
1790,  the  coflin  of  Milton  suffered  profanation,  and  his 
bones  were  dispersed.  Among  the  monuments  hard  by 
is  a  fine  marble  bust  of  Milton,  placed  against  the  wall, 
and   it   is    said,   by   way  of    enhancing  its  value,  that 


XIV  OLD   CHURCHES   OF   LONDON  181 

George  the  Third  came  here  to  see  it.'  Several  of  the 
neighbouring  inscriptions  are  of  astonishing  quaintness. 
The  adjacent  churchyard  —  an  eccentric,  sequestered, 
lonesome  bit  of  grassy  ground,  teeming  with  monuments, 
and  hemmed  in  with  houses,  terminates,  at  one  end,  in 
a  piece  of  the  old  Roman  wall  of  London  (a.d.  306),  — 
an  adamantine  structure  of  cemented  flints  —  which  has 
lasted  from  the  days  of  Constantine,  and  which  bids  fair  to 
last  forever.  I  shall  always  remember  that  strange  nook 
with  the  golden  light  of  a  summer  morning  shining  upon 
it,  the  birds  twittering  among  its  graves,  and  all  around 
it  such  an  atmosphere  of  solitude  and  rest  as  made  it 
seem,  though  in  the  heart  of  the  great  city,  a  thousand 
miles  from  any  haunt  of  man.  (It  was  formally  opened 
as  a  garden  for  public  recreation  on  July  8,  1891.) 

St.  Helen's,  Bishopsgate,  an  ancient  and  venerable 
temple,  the  church  of  the  priory  of  the  nuns  of  St. 
Helen,  built  in  the  thirteenth  century,  is  full  of  relics 
of  the  history  of  England.  The  priory,  which  adjoined 
this  church,  has  long  since  disappeared  and  portions  of 
the  building  have  been  restored ;  but  the  noble  Gothic 
columns  and  the  commemorative  sculpture  remain  un- 
changed. Here  are  the  tombs  of  Sir  John  Crosby,  who 
built  Crosby  Place  (1466),  Sir  Thomas  Gresham,  who 
founded  both  Gresham  College  and  the  Royal  Exchange 
in  London,  and  Sir  William  Pickering,  once  Queen  Eliz- 
abeth's Minister  to  Spain  and  one  of  the  amorous  aspir- 
ants for  her  royal  hand ;  and  here,  in  a  gloomy  chapel, 

1  This  memorial  bears  the  following  inscription :  "  John  Milton.  Author 
of  '  Paradise  Lost.'  Born,  December  1608.  Died,  November  1674.  His 
father,  John  Milton,  died,  March  1646.  They  were  both  interred  in  this 
church." 


182 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


stands  the  veritable  altar  at  which,  it  is  said,  the  Duke 
of  Gloster  received  absolution,  after  the  disappearance 
of  the  princes  in  the  Tower.  Standing  at  that  altar,  in 
the  cool  silence  of  the  lonely  church  and  the  waning 
light  of  afternoon,  it  was  easy  to  conjure  up  his  slender, 
slightly  misshapen  form,  decked  in  the  rich  apparel  that 
he  loved,  his  handsome,  aquiline,  thoughtful  face,  the 


Sir  John  Crosby's  Momiment. 


drooping  head,  the  glittering  eyes,  the  nervous  hand 
that  toyed  with  the  dagger,  and  the  stealthy  stillness  of 
his  person,  from  head  to  foot,  as  he  knelt  there  before 
the  priest  and  perhaps  mocked  both  himself  and  heaven 
with  the  form  of  prayer.  Every  place  that  Richard 
touched  is  haunted  by  his  magnetic  presence.  In  an- 
other part  of  the  church  you  are  shown  the  tomb  of  a 
person  whose  will  provided  that  the  key  of  his  sepulchre 


XIV 


OLD   CHURCHES   OF   LONDON 


183 


should  be  placed  beside  his  body,  and  that  the  door 
should  be  opened  once  a  year,  for  a  hundred  years.  It 
seems  to  have  been  his  expectation  to  awake  and  arise  ; 
but  the  allotted  century  has  passed  and  his  bones  are 
still  quiescent. 

How  calmly  they  sleep  —  those  warriors  who  once 
filled  the  world  with  the  tumult  of  their  deeds  !  If  you 
go  into  St.  Mary's,  in  the  Temple,  you  will  stand  above 
the  dust  of  the  Crusaders  and  see  the  beautiful  copper 


Gresham's  Tilonument. 


effigies  of  them,  recumbent  on  the  marble  pavement,  and 
feel  and  know,  as  perhaps  you  never  did  before,  the 
calm  that  follows  the  tempest.  St.  Mary's  was  built  in 
1240  and  restored  in  1828.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find 
a  lovelier  specimen  of  Norman  architecture  —  at  once 
massive  and  airy,  perfectly  simple,  yet  rich  with  beauty, 
in  every  line  and  scroll.  There  is  only  one  other 
church  in  Great  Britain,  it  is  said,  which  has,  like  this,  a 


Goldsmith's  House. 


CHAP.    XIV 


OLD  CHURCHES   OF   LONDON 


185 


circular     vestibule.      The   stained   glass    windows,    both 

here  and  at  St.  Helen's,  are  very  glorious.      The  organ  at 

St.  Mary's  was  selected  by  Jeffreys,  afterwards  infamous 

as  the  wicked  judge.      The  pilgrim  who  pauses  to  muse 

at  the  grave  of    Goldsmith  may  often   hear  its  solemn, 

mournful  tones.     I  heard  them  thus,  and  was  thinking 

of  Dr.  Johnson's  tender    words,   when  he  first  learned 

that  Goldsmith  was  dead:  "  Poor  Goldy  was  wild — very 

wild  —  but  he  is  so  no   more."     The  room  in  which  he 

died,  a  heart-broken   man  at  only   forty-six,  was  but  a 

little  way  from  the  spot  where  he  sleeps.^    The  noises  of 

Fleet  Street  are  heard  there  only  as  a  distant  murmur. 

But  birds  chirp  over  him,  and  leaves  flutter  down  upon 

his  tomb,  and  every  breeze  that  sighs  around  the  gray 

turrets  of    the  ancient  Temple  breathes  out  his  requiem. 

1  No.  2  Brick  Court,  Middle  Temple. —  In  1757-58  Goldsmith  was  em- 
ployed by  a  chemist,  near  Fish  Street  Hill.  ^Yhen  he  wrote  his  Inqnii-y 
into  the  Present  State  of  Polite  Learning  in  Europe  he  was  living  in  Green 
Arbour  Court,  "  over  Break-neck  Steps."  At  a  lodging  in  Wine  Office  Court, 
Fleet  Street,  he  wrote  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield.  Afterwards  he  had  lodgings 
at  Canonbury  House,  Islington,  and  in  1764,  in  the  Library  Staircase  of  the 
Inner  Temple.  ^ 


CHAPTER  XV 


LITERARY    SHRINES    OF    LONDON 


HE  mind  that  can  reverence  historic  asso- 
ciations needs  no  explanation  of  the  charm 
that  such  associations  possess.  There  are 
i^T  streets  and  houses  in  London  which,  for 
u  pilgrims  of  this  class,  are  haunted  with 
memories  and  hallowed  with  an  imperishable  light  — 
that  not  even  the  drear}^  commonness  of  ever}'day  life 
can  quench  or  dim.  Almost  every  great  author  in  Eng- 
lish literature  has  here  left  behind  him  some  personal 
trace,  some  relic  that  brings  us  at  once  into  his  living 
presence.  In  the  time  of  Shakespeare,  —  of  whom  it 
may  be  noted  that  w^herever  you  find  him  at  all  you  find 
him  in  select  and  elegant  neighbourhoods,  — St.  Helen's 
parish  was  a  secluded  and  peaceful  quarter  of  the  town  ; 
and  there  the  poet  had  his  residence,  convenient  to  the 
theatre  in  Blackfriars,  in  which  he  is  know^n  to  have 
owned  a  share.  It  is  said  that  he  dwelt  at  number 
134  Aldersgate  Street  (the  house  has  been  demolished  J, 
and  in  that  region,  —  amid  all  the  din  of  traffic  and  all 
the  strange  adjuncts  of  a  new  age, — those  who   love 

186 


CHAP.  XV  LITERARY   SHRINES   OF   LONDON  187 

him  are  in  his  company.  Milton  was  born  in  a  court 
adjacent  to  Bread  Street,  Cheapside,  and  the  explorer 
comes  upon  him  as  a  resident  in  St.  Bride's  churchyard, 
—  where  the  poet  Lovelace  was  buried,  —  and  at  the 
house  which  is  now  No.  19  York  Street,  Westminster 
(in  later  times  occupied  by  Bentham  and  by  Hazlitt), 
and  in  Jewin  Street,  Aldersgate.  When  secretary  to 
Cromwell  he  lived  in  Scotland  Yard,  where  now  is  the 
headquarters  of  the  London  police.  His  last  home  was 
in  Artillery  Walk,  Bunhill  Fields,  but  the  visitor  to  that 
spot  finds  it  covered  by  the  Artillery  barracks.  Walk- 
ing through  King  Street,  Westminster,  you  will  not 
forget  Edmund  Spenser,  who  died  there,  in  grief  and 
destitution,  a  victim  to  the  same  inhuman  spirit  of  Irish 
ruffianism  that  is  still  disgracing  humanity  and  troubling 
the  peace  of  the  world.  Everybody  remembers  Ben 
Jonson's  terse  record  of  that  calamity:  "The  Irish  hav- 
ing robbed  Spenser's  goods  and  burnt  his  house  and  a 
little  child  new-born,  he  and  his  wife  escaped,  and  after 
he  died,  for  lack  of  bread,  in  King  Street."  Jonson  him- 
self is  closely  and  charmingly  associated  with  places 
that  may  still  be  seen.  He  passed  his  boyhood  near 
Charing  Cross  —  having  been  born  in  Hartshorn  Lane, 
now  Northumberland  Street  —  and  went  to  the  parish 
school  of  St.  Martin-in-the- Fields ;  and  those  who  roam 
around  Lincoln's  Inn  will  call  to  mind  that  this  great 
poet  helped  to  build  it  —  a  trowel  in  one  hand  and 
Horace  in  the  other.  His  residence,  in  his  days  of 
fame,  was  just  outside  of  Temple  Bar  —  but  all  that 
neighbourhood  is  new  at  the  present  time. 

The    Mermaid,  which  he  frequented  —  with    Shake- 
speare, Fletcher,  Herrick,  Chapman,  and  Donne — was 


188 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


in  Bread  Street,  but  no  trace  of  it  remains ;  and  a  bank- 
ing-house stands  now  on  the  site  of  the  Devil  Tavern,  in 
Fleet  Street,  where  the  Apollo  Club,  which  he  founded, 
used  to  meet.  The  famous  inscription,  "  O  rare  Ben 
Jonson,"  is  three  times  cut  in  the  Abbey — •  once  in 
Poets'  Corner  and  twice  in  the  north  aisle  where    he 


was  buried,  the  smaller  of  the  two  slabs  marking  the 
place  of  his  vertical  grave.  Dryden  once  dwelt  in  a 
narrow,  dingy,  quaint  house,  in  Fetter  Lane,  —  the 
street  in  which  Dean  Swift  has  placed  the  home  of  Gul- 
liver, and  where  now  (1882)  the  famous  Doomsday  Book 
is  kept,  —  but  later  he  removed  to  a  finer  dwelling,  in 
Gerrard  Street,  Soho,  which  was  the  scene  of  his  death. 


XV  LITERARY   SHRINES   OF   LONDON  189 

Both  buildings  arc  marked  with  mural  tablets  and 
neither  of  them  seems  to  have  undergone  much  change. 
(The  house  in  Fetter  Lane  is  gone — 1891.)  Edmund 
Burke's  house,  also  in  Gerrard  Street,  is  a  beer-shop ; 
but  his  memory  hallows  the  place,  and  an  inscription 
upon  it  proudly  announces  that  here  he  lived.  Dr. 
Johnson's  house  in  Gough  Square  bears  likewise  a 
mural  tablet,  and,  standing  at  its  time-worn  threshold, 
the  visitor  needs  no  effort  of  fancy  to  picture  that  un- 
couth figure  shambling  through  the  crooked  lanes  that 
lead  into  this  queer,  sombre,  melancholy  retreat.  In 
that  house  he  wrote  the  first  Dictionary  of  the  English 
language  and  the  immortal  letter  to  Lord  Chesterfield. 
In  Gough  Square  lived  and  died  Hugh  Kelly,  dramatist, 
author  of  The  School  of  Wives  and  The  Man  of  Reason, 
and  one  of  the  friends  of  Goldsmith,  at  whose  burial  he 
was  present.  The  historical  antiquarian  society  that 
has  marked  many  of  the  literary  shrines  of  London  has 
rendered  a  great  service.  The  houses  associated  with 
Reynolds  and  Hogarth,  in  Leicester  Square,  Byron,  in 
Holies  Street,  Benjamin  Franklin  and  Peter  the  Great, 
in  Craven  Street,  Campbell,  in  Duke  Street,  St.  James's, 
Garrick,  in  the  Adelphi  Terrace,  Michael  Farraday,  in 
Blandford  Street,  and  Mrs.  Siddons,  in  Baker  Street,  are 
but  a  few  of  the  historic  spots  which  are  thus  commem- 
orated. Much,  however,  remains  to  be  done.  One 
would  like  to  know,  for  instance,  in  which  room  in  "  The 
Albany  "  it  was  that  Byron  wrote  Lara}  in  which  of  the 

1  Byron  was  born  at  No.  34  Holies  Street,  Cavendish  Square.  While 
he  was  at  school  in  Dulwich  Grove  his  mother  lived  in  a  house  in  Sloane 
Terrace.  Other  houses  associated  with  him  are  No.  8  St.  James  Street;  a 
lodging   in    Bennet    Street;   No.  2    "The    Albany" — a  lodging   that   he 


190  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  xv 

houses  of  Buckingham  Street  Coleridge  had  his  lodging 
while  he  was  translating  Walleiistein ;  whereabouts  in 
Bloomsbury  Square  was  the  residence  of  Akenside,  who 
wrote  The  Pleasures  of  luiaginatioti,  and  of  Croly,  who 
wrote  SalatJiiel ;  or  where  it  was  that  Gray  lived,  w^hen 
he  established  himself  close  by  Russell  Square,  in  order 
to  be  one  of  the  first  —  as  he  continued  to  be  one  of  the 
most  constant  —  students  at  the  then  newly  opened  Brit- 
ish Museum  (1759).  These,  and  such  as  these,  may  seem 
trivial  things;  but  Nature  has  denied  an  unfailing  source 
of  innocent  happiness  to  the  man  who  can  find  no  pleas- 
ure in  them.  For  my  part,  when  rambling  in  Fleet 
Street  it  is  a  special  delight  to  remember  even  so  slight 
an  incident  as  that  recorded  of  the  author  of  the  Elegy 
in  a  Country  CJmrcJiyard,  —  that  he  once  saw  there  his 
satirist,  Dr.  Johnson,  rolling  and  puffing  along  the  side- 
walk, and  cried  out  to  a  friend,  "  Here  comes  Ursa 
Major."  For  the  true  lovers  of  literature  "Ursa  Major" 
walks  oftener  in  Fleet  Street  to-day  than  any  living  man. 
A  good  thread  of  literary  research  might  be  profitably 
followed  by  him  who  should  trace  the  footsteps  of  all 
the  poets  that  have  held,  in  England,  the  office  of  laure- 
ate. John  Kay  was  laureate  in  the  reign  of  Edward  IV. ; 
Andrew  Bernard  in  that  of  Henry  VH. ;  John  Skelton 
in  that  of  Henry  VHI.;  and  Edmund  Spenser  in  that 

rented  of  Lord  Althorpe,  and  entered  on  March  28,  1814;  and  No. 
139  Piccadilly,  where  his  daughter,  Ada,  was  born,  and  where  Lady  Byron 
left  him.  This,  at  present,  is  the  home  of  the  genial  scholar  Sir  Algernon 
Borthwick  (1893).  John  Murray's  house,  where  Byron's  fragment  of 
Autobiography  was  burned,  is  in  Albemarle  Street.  Byron's  body,  when 
brought  home  from  Greece,  lay  in  state  at  No.  25  Great  George  Street, 
Westminster,  before  being  taken  north,  to  Hucknall-Torkard  church,  in 
Nottinghamshire,  for  burial. 


.(v 


.->"^f 


mv^. 


? 


'&0 


192  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

of  Elizabeth.  Since  then  the  succession  has  included 
the  names  of  Samuel  Daniel,  Michael  Drayton,  Ben 
Jonson,  Sir  William  Davenant,  John  Dryden,  Thomas 
Shadwell,  Nahum  Tate,  Nicholas  Rowe,  Lawrence 
Eusden,  Colley  Gibber,  William  Whitehead,  Thomas 
Wharton,  Henry  James  Pye,  Robert  Southey,  William 
Wordsworth,  and  Alfred  Tennyson  —  who,  until  his 
death,  in  1892,  wore,  in  spotless  renown,  that 

"  Laurel  greener  from  the  brows 
Of  him  that  uttefd  nothing  base." 

Most  of  those  bards  were  intimately  associated  with 
London,  and  several  of  them  are  buried  in  the  Abbey. 
It  is,  indeed,  because  so  many  storied  names  are  writ- 
ten upon  gravestones  that  the  explorer  of  the  old 
churches  of  London  finds  so  rich  a  harvest  of  impres- 
sive association  and  lofty  thought.  Few  persons  visit 
them,  and  you  are  likely  to  find  yourself  comparatively 
alone  in  rambles  of  this  kind.  I  went  one  morning 
into  St.  Martin  —  once  "in  the  fields,"  now  in  one  of 
the  busiest  thoroughfares  at  the  centre  of  the  city  — 
and  found  there  only  a  pew-opener  preparing  for  the 
service,  and  an  organist  playing  an  anthem.  It  is  a 
beautiful  structure,  with  its  graceful  spire  and  its  columns 
of  weather-beaten  stone,  curiously  stained  in  gray  and 
sooty  black,  and  it  is  almost  as  famous  for  theatrical 
names  as  St.  Paul's,  Covent  Garden,  or  St.  George's, 
Bloomsbury,  or  St.  Clement  Danes.  Here,  in  a  vault 
beneath  the  church,  was  buried  the  bewitching  and 
affectionate  Nell  Gwyn ;  here  is  the  grave  of  James 
Smith,  joint  author  with  his  brother  Horace  —  who  was 
buried  at  Tunbridge  Wells  —  of  The  Rejected  Addresses  ; 


XV 


LITERARY   SHRINES   OF   LONDON 


193 


here  rests  Yates,  the  original  Sir  Oliver  Surface ;  and 
here  were  laid  the  ashes  of  the  romantic  and  sprightly 
Mrs.  Centlivre,  and  of  George  Farquhar,  whom 
neither  youth,  genius,  patient 
labour,  nor  sterling  achievement 
could  save  from  a  life  of  mis- 
fortune and  an  untimely  and 
^U  piteous  death.  A  cheerier  asso- 
M  elation  of  this  church  is  with 
Thomas  Moore,  the  poet  of  Ire- 


^^^*^fi^lfe> 


Gray's  Inn  Square. 


land,  who  was  here  married.  At  St.  Giles-in-the-Fields, 
again,  are  the  graves  of  George  Chapman,  who  trans- 
lated  Homer,  Andrew   Marvel,  who  wrote  such  lovely 


194  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  xv 

lyrics  of  love,  Rich,  the  manager,  who  brought  out 
Gay's  Beggar  s  Opera,  and  James  Shirley,  the  fine  old 
dramatist  and  poet,  whose  immortal  couplet  has  been  so 
often  murmured  in  such  solemn  haunts  as  these  — 

"  Only  the  actions  of  the  just 
Smell  sweet  and  blossom  in  the  dust." 

Shirley  lived  in  Gray's  Inn  when  he  was  writing  his 
plays,  and  he  was  fortunate  in  the  favour  of  queen  Hen- 
rietta Maria,  wife  to  Charles  the  First;  but  when  the 
Puritan  times  arrived  he  fell  into  misfortune  and  poverty 
and  became  a  school-teacher  in  Whitefriars.  In  1666 
he  was  living  in  or  near  Fleet  Street,  and  his  home  was 
one  of  the  many  dwellings  that  were  destroyed  in  the 
great  fire.  Then  he  fled,  with  his  wife,  into  the  parish 
of  St.  Giles-in-the-Fields,  where,  overcome  with  grief 
and  terror,  they  both  died,  within  twenty-four  hours  of 
each  other,  and  were  buried  in  the  same  grave. 


CHAPTER   XVI 


A    HAUNT    OF    EDMUND    KEAN 


O  muse  over  the  dust  of  those  about  whom 
we  have  read  so  much — the  great  actors, 
thinkers,  and  writers,  the  warriors  and 
statesmen  for  whom  the  play  is  ended  and 
the  lights  are  put  out  —  is  to  come  very 
near  to  them,  and  to  realise  more  deeply  than  ever 
before  their  close  relationship  with  our  own  humanity ; 
and  we  ought  to  be  wiser  and  better  for  this  experience. 
It  is  good,  also,  to  seek  out  the  favourite  haunts  of  our 
heroes,  and  call  them  up  as  they  were  in  their  lives. 
One  of  the  happiest  accidents  of  a  London  stroll  was 
the  finding  of  the  Harp  Tavern,^  in  Russell  Street, 
Covent  Garden,  near  the  stage  door  of  Drury  Lane 
theatre,  which  was  the  accustomed  resort  of  Edmund 

^  An  account  of  the  Harp,  in  the  Victuallers'  Gazelle,  says  that  this 
tavern  has  had  within  its  doors  every  actor  of  note  since  the  days  of  Gar- 
rick,  and  many  actresses,  also,  of  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century; 
and  it  mentions,  as  visitants  there,  Dora  Jordan,  Nance  Oldfield,  Anne 
Bracegirdle,  Kitty  Clive,  Harriet  Mellon,  Barton  Booth,  Quin,  Gibber, 
Macklin,  Grimaldi,  Eliza  Vestris,  and  Miss  Stephens — who  became 
Gountess  of  Essex. 


196  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

Kean.  Carpenters  and  masons  were  at  work  upon  it 
when  I  entered,  and  it  was  necessary  almost  to  creep 
amid  heaps  of  broken  mortar  and  rubbish  beneath  their 
scaffolds,  in  order  to  reach  the  interior  rooms.  Here,  at 
the  end  of  a  narrow  passage,  was  a  little  apartment,  per- 
haps fifteen  feet  square,  with  a  low  ceiling  and  a  bare 
floor,  in  which  Kean  habitually  took  his  pleasure,  in  the 
society  of  fellow-actors  and  boon  companions,  long  ago. 
A  narrow,  cushioned  bench  against  the  walls,  a  few 
small  tables,  a  chair  or  two,  a  number  of  churchwarden 
pipes  on  the  mantlepiece,  and  portraits  of  Disraeli  and 
Gladstone,  constituted  the  furniture.  A  panelled  wain- 
scot and  dingy  red  paper  covered  the  walls,  and  a  few 
cobwebs  hung  from  the  grimy  ceiling.  By  this  time 
the  old  room  has  been  made  neat  and  comely;  but  then 
it  bore  the  marks  of  hard  usage  and  long  neglect,  and 
it  seemed  all  the  more  interesting  for  that  reason. 

Kean's  seat  is  at  the  right,  as  you  enter,  and  just 
above  it  a  mural  tablet  designates  the  spot,  —  which  is 
still  further  commemorated  by  a  death-mask  of  the 
actor,  placed  on  a  little  shelf  of  dark  wood  and  covered 
with  glass.  No  better  portrait  could  be  desired ;  cer- 
tainly no  truer  one  exists.  In  life  this  must  have  been 
a  glorious  face.  The  eyes  are  large  and  prominent,  the 
brow  is  broad  and  fine,  the  mouth  wide  and  obviously 
sensitive,  the  chin  delicate,  and  the  nose  long,  well  set, 
and  indicative  of  immense  force  of  character.  The 
whole  expression  of  the  face  is  that  of  refinement  and 
of  great  and  desolate  sadness.  Kean,  as  is  known  from 
the  testimony  of  one  who  acted  with  him,^  was  always 

1  The  mother  of  Jefferson,  the  comedian,  described  Edmund  Kean  in 
this  way.     She  was   a   member  of  the   company  at  the   Walnut   Street 


XVI  A   HAUNT   OF   EDMUND   KEAN  197 

at  his  best  in  passages  of  pathos.  To  hear  him  speak 
Othello's  farewell  was  to  hear  the  perfect  music  of 
heart-broken  despair.  To  see  him  when,  as  The  Stran- 
ger, he  listened  to  the  song,  was  to  see  the  genuine, 
absolute  reality  of  hopeless  sorrow.  He  could,  of  course, 
thrill  his  hearers  in  the  ferocious  outbursts  of  Richard 
and  Sir  Giles,  but  it  was  in  tenderness  and  grief  that  he 
was  supremely  great ;  and  no  one  will  wonder  at  that 
who  looks  upon  his  noble  face  —  so  eloquent  of  self- 
conflict  and  suffering  —  even  in  this  cold  and  colourless 
mask  of  death.  It  is  easy  to  judge  and  condemn  the 
sins  of  a  weak,  passionate  humanity ;  but  when  we 
think  of  such  creatures  of  genius  as  Edmund  Kean  and 
Robert  Burns,  we  ought  to  consider  what  demons  in 
their  own  souls  those  wretched  men  were  forced  to 
fight,  and  by  what  agonies  they  expiated  their  vices  and 
errors.  This  little  tavern-room  tells  the  whole  mournful 
story,  with  death  to  point  the  moral,  and  pity  to  breathe 
its  sigh  of  unavailing  regret. 

Many  of  the  present  frequenters  of  the  Harp  are 
elderly  men,  whose  conversation  is  enriched  with 
memories  of  the  stage  and  with  ample  knowledge  and 
judicious  taste  in  literature  and  art.  They  naturally 
speak  with  pride  of  Kean's  association  with  their 
favourite  resort.  Often  in  that  room  the  eccentric 
genius  has  put  himself  in  pawn,  to  exact  from  the 
manager  of  Drury  Lane  theatre  the  money  needed  to 

Theatre,  Philadelphia,  when  he  acted  there,  and  it  was  she  who  sang  for 
him,  when  he  acted  The  Stranger,  the  well-known  lines,  by  Sheridan,  — 

"  I  have  a  silent  sorrow  here, 
A  grief  I'll  ne'er  impart; 
It  breathes  no  sigh,  it  sheds  no  tear. 
But  it  consumes  my  heart." 


198  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

relieve  the  wants  of  some  brother  actor.  Often  his 
voice  has  been  heard  there,  in  the  songs  that  he  sang 
with  so  much  feeling  and  sweetness  and  such  homely 
yet  beautiful  skill.  In  the  circles  of  the  learned  and 
courtly  he  never  was  really  at  home ;  but  here  he  filled 
the  throne  and  ruled  the  kingdom  of  the  revel,  and 
here  no  doubt  every  mood  of  his  mind,  from  high 
thought  and  generous  emotion  to  misanthropical  bit- 
terness and  vacant  levity,  found  its  unfettered  expres- 
sion. They  show  you  a  broken  panel  in  the  high 
wainscot,  which  was  struck  and  smashed  by  a  pewter  pot 
that  he  hurled  at  the  head  of  a  person  who  had  given 
him  offence  ;  and  they  tell  you  at  the  same  time,  —  as, 
indeed,  is  historically  true,  —  that  he  was  the  idol  of 
his  comrades,  the  first  in  love,  pity,  sympathy,  and  kind- 
ness, and  would  turn  his  back,  any  day,  for  the  least  of 
them,  on  the  nobles  who  sought  his  companionship. 
There  is  no  better  place  than  this  in  which  to  study 
the  life  of  Edmund  Kean.  Old  men  have  been  met 
with  here  who  saw  him  on  the  stage,  and  even  acted 
with  him.  The  room  is  the  weekly  meeting-place  and 
habitual  nightly  tryst  of  an  ancient  club,  called  the  City 
of  Lushington,  which  has  existed  since  the  days  of  the 
Regency,  and  of  which  these  persons  are  members. 
The  City  has  its  Mayor,  Sheriff,  insignia,  record-book, 
and  system  of  ceremonials ;  and  much  of  wit,  wisdom, 
and  song  may  be  enjoyed  at  its  civic  feasts.  The  names 
of  its  four  wards — Lunacy,  Suicide,  Poverty,  and  Juni- 
per —  are  written  up  in  the  four  corners  of  the  room, 
and  whoever  joins  must  select  his  ward.  Sheridan  was 
a  member  of  it,  and  so  was  the  Regent ;  and  the  present 
landlord  of  the  Harp  (Mr.  M'Pherson)  preserves  among 


XVI  A    HAUNT   OF   EDMUND   KEAN  199 

his  relics  the  chairs  in  which  those  gay  companions  sat, 
when  the  author  presided  over  the  initiation  of  the 
prince.  It  is  thought  that  this  club  grew  out  of  the 
society  of  The  Wolves,  which  was  formed  by  Kean's 
adherents,  when  the  elder  Booth  arose  to  disturb  his 
supremacy  upon  the  stage.  But  there  is  no  malice  in 
it  now.  Its  purposes  are  simply  convivial  and  literary, 
and  its  tone  is  that  of  thorough  good-will.^ 

One  of  the  gentlest  and  most  winning  traits  in  the 
English  character  is  its  instinct  of  companionship  as  to 
literature  and  art.  Since  the  days  of  the  Mermaid  the 
authors  and  actors  of  London  have  dearly  loved  and 
deeply  enjoyed  such  odd  little  fraternities  of  wit  as  are 
typified,  not  inaptly,  by  the  City  of  Lushington.  There 
are  no  rosier  hours  in  my  memory  than  those  that  were 
passed,  between  midnight  and  morning,  in  the  cosy 
clubs  in  London.  And  when  dark  days  come,  and  foes 
harass,  and  the  troubles  of  life  annoy,  it  will  be  sweet 
to  think  that  in  still  another  sacred  retreat  of  friendship, 
across  the  sea,  the  old  armour  is  gleaming  in  the  festal 
lights,  where  one  of  the  gentlest  spirits  that  ever  wore 
the  laurel  of  England's  love  smiles  kindly  on  his  com- 
rades and  seems  to  murmur  the  charm  of  English 
hospitality  — 


'&' 


"  Let  no  one  take  beyond  this  threshold  hence 
Words  uttered  here  in  friendship's  confidence.''' 

^  A  coloured  print  of  this  room  may  be  found  in  that  eccentric  book 
The  Life  of  an  Actor,  by  Pierce  Egan :    1825. 


CHAPTER   XVII 


STOKE-POGIS    AND    THOMAS    GRAY 


'■'^^^^ 

1 

T  is  a  cool  afternoon  in  July,  and  the 
shadows  are  falling  eastward  on  fields  of 
waving  grain  and  lawns  of  emerald  velvet. 
Overhead  a  few  light  clouds  are  drifting, 
and  the  green  boughs  of  the  great  elms 
are  gently  stirred  by  a  breeze  from  the  west.  Across 
one  of  the  more  distant  fields  a  flock  of  sable  rooks  — 
some  of  them  fluttering  and  cawing  —  wings  its  slow 
and  melancholy  flight.  There  is  the  sound  of  the 
whetting  of  a  scythe,  and,  near  by,  the  twittering  of 
many  birds  upon  a  cottage  roof.  On  either  side  of  the 
country  road,  which  runs  like  a  white  rivulet  through 
banks  of  green,  the  hawthorn  hedges  are  shining  and 
the  bright  sod  is  spangled  with  all  the  wild -flowers 
of  an  English  summer.  An  odour  of  lime-trees  and 
of  new -mown  hay  sweetens  the  air  for  many  miles 
around.  Far  off,  on  the  horizon's  verge,  just  glimmer- 
ing through  the  haze,  rises  the  imperial  citadel  of  Wind- 
sor.    And  close  at  hand  a  little  child  points  to  a  gray 

200 


CHAP.  XVII         STOKE-POGIS   AND   THOMAS   GRAY  201 

spire  ^  peering  out  of  a  nest  of  ivy,  and  tells  me  that 
this  is  Stoke-Pogis  church. 

If  peace  dwells  anywhere  upon  the  earth  its  dwell- 
ing-place is  here.  You  come  into  this  little  church- 
yard by  a  pathway  across  the  park  and  through  a 
wooden  turnstile ;  and  in  one  moment  the  whole  world 
is  left  behind  and  forgotten.  Here  are  the  nodding 
elms  ;  here  is  the  yew-tree's  shade  ;  here  "  heaves  the 
turf  in  many  a  mouldering  heap."  All  these  graves 
seem  very  old.  The  long  grass  waves  over  them, 
and  some  of  the  low  stones  that  mark  them  are  entirely 
shrouded  with  ivy.  Many  of  the  "frail  memorials" 
are  made  of  wood.  None  of  them  is  neglected  or  for- 
lorn, but  all  of  them  seem  to  have  been  scattered  here, 
in  that  sweet  disorder  which  is  the  perfection  of  rural 
loveliness.  There  never,  of  course,  could  have  been 
any  thought  of  creating  this  effect;  yet  here  it  re- 
mains, to  win  your  heart  forever.  And  here,  amid  this 
mournful  beauty,  the  little  church  itself  nestles  close  to 
the  ground,  while  every  tree  that  waves  its  branches 
around  it,  and  every  vine  that  clambers  on  its  surface, 
seems  to  clasp  it  in  the  arms  of  love.  Nothing  breaks 
the  silence  but  the  sighing  of  the  wind  in  the  great  yew- 
tree  at  the  church  door,  —  beneath  which  was  the  poet's 
favourite  seat,  and  where  the  brown  needles,  falling, 
through  many  an  autumn,  have  made  a  dense  carpet  on 
the  turf.  Now  and  then  there  is  a  faint  rustle  in  the 
ivy ;  a  fitful  bird-note  serves  but  to  deepen  the  stillness ; 
and  from  a  rose-tree  near  at  hand  a  few  leaves  flutter 
down,  in  soundless  benediction  on  the  dust  beneath. 

1  In  Gray's  time  there  was  no  spire  on  the  church  —  nor  is  the  spire  an 
improvement  to  the  tower. 


to 


CHAP.  XVII         STOKE-POGIS   AND   THOMAS   GRAY  203 

Gray  was  laid  in  the  same  grave  with  his  mother, 
"  the  careful,  tender  mother  of  many  children,  one 
alone  of  whom,"  as  he  wrote  upon  her  gravestone, 
"had  the  misfortune  to  survive  her."  Their  tomb  —  a 
low,  oblong,  brick  structure,  covered  with  a  large  slab 
—  stands  a  few  feet  away  from  the  church  wall,  upon 
which  is  a  small  tablet  to  denote  its  place.  The  poet's 
name  has  not  been  inscribed  above  him.  There  was 
no  need  here  of  "storied  urn  or  animated  bust."  The 
place  is  his  monument,  and  the  majestic  Elegy  —  giving 
to  the  soul  of  the  place  a  form  of  seraphic  beauty  and 
a  voice  of  celestial  music  —  is  his  immortal  epitaph. 

"  There  scattered  oft,  the  earliest  of  ye  Year, 

By  hands  unseen  are  showers  of  vi'lets  found ; 
The  Redbreast  loves  to  build  &  warble  there. 
And  little  Footsteps  Hghtly  print  the  ground." 

There  is  a  monument  to  Gray  in  Stoke  Park,  about 
two  hundred  yards  from  the  church  ;  but  it  seems  com- 
memorative of  the  builder  rather  than  the  poet.  They 
intend  to  set  a  memorial  window  in  the  church,  to 
honour  him,  and  the  visitor  finds  there  a  money-box  for 
the  reception  of  contributions  in  aid  of  this  pious  design. 
Nothing  will  be  done  amiss  that  serves  to  direct  closer 
attention  to  his  life.  It  was  one  of  the  best  lives  ever 
recorded  in  the  history  of  literature.  It  was  a  life  sin- 
gularly pure,  noble,  and  beautiful.  In  two  qualities, 
sincerity  and  reticence,  it  was  exemplary  almost  beyond 
a  parallel ;  and  those  are  qualities  that  literary  character 
in  the  present  day  has  great  need  to  acquire.  Gray 
was  averse  to  publicity.  He  did  not  sway  by  the 
censure  of  other  men ;  neither  did  he  need  their  admira- 


204  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

tion  as  his  breath  of  Hfe.  Poetry,  to  him,  was  a  great 
art,  and  he  added  nothing  to  Hterature  until  he  had  first 
made  it  as  nearly  perfect  as  it  could  be  made  by  the 
thoughtful,  laborious  exertion  of  his  best  powers,  super- 
added to  the  spontaneous  impulse  and  flow  of  his  genius. 
More  voluminous  writers,  Charles  Dickens  among  the 
rest,  have  sneered  at  him  because  he  wrote  so  little. 
The  most  colossal  form  of  human  complacency  is  that 
of  the  individual  who  thinks  all  other  creatures  inferior 
who  happen  to  be  unlike  himself.  This  reticence  on 
the  part  of  Gray  was,  in  fact,  the  emblem  of  his  sin- 
cerity and  the  compelling  cause  of  his  imperishable 
renown.  There  is  a  better  thing  than  the  great  man 
who  is  always  speaking  ;  and  that  is  the  great  man 
who  only  speaks  when  he  has  a  great  word  to  say. 
Gray  has  left  only  a  few  poems ;  but  of  his  principal 
works  each  is  perfect  in  its  kind,  supreme  and  unap- 
proachable. He  did  not  test  merit  by  reference  to  ill- 
formed  and  capricious  public  opinion,  but  he  wrought 
according  to  the  highest  standards  of  art  that  learning 
and  taste  could  furnish.  His  letters  form  an  English 
classic.  There  is  no  purer  prose  in  existence ;  there  is 
not  much  that  is  so  pure.  But  the  crowning  glory  of 
Gray's  nature,  the  element  that  makes  it  so  impressive, 
the  charm  that  brings  the  pilgrim  to  Stoke-Pogis  church 
to  muse  upon  it,  was  the  self-poised,  sincere,  and  lovely 
exaltation  of  its  contemplative  spirit.  He  was  a  man 
whose  conduct  of  life  would,  first  of  all,  purify,  expand, 
and  adorn  the  temple  of  his  own  soul,  out  of  which 
should  afterward  flow,  in  their  own  free  way,  those 
choral  harmonies  that  soothe,  guide,  and  exalt  the 
human  race.     He  lived  before  he  wrote.     The  soul  of 


XVII  STOKE-POGIS   AND   THOMAS   GRAY  205 

the  Elegy  is  the  soul  of  the  man.  It  was  his  thought 
—  which  he  has  somewhere  expressed  in  better  words 
than  these — that  human  beings  are  only  at  their  best 
while  such  feelings  endure  as  are  engendered  when 
death  has  just  taken  from  us  the  objects  of  our  love. 
That  was  the  point  of  view  from  which  he  habitually 
looked  upon  the  world ;  and  no  man  who  has  learned 
the  lessons  of  experience  can  doubt  that  he  was  right. 

Gray  was  twenty-six  years  old  when  he  wrote  the 
first  draft  of  the  Elegy.  He  began  that  poem  in  1742, 
at  Stoke-Pogis,  and  he  finished  and  published  it  in 
1 75 1.  No  visitor  to  this  churchyard  can  miss  either 
its  inspiration  or  its  imagery.  The  poet  has  been  dead 
more  than  a  hundred  years,  but  the  scene  of  his  ram- 
bles and  reveries  has  suffered  no  material  change. 
One  of  his  yew-trees,  indeed,  much  weakened  with  age, 
was  some  time  since  blown  down,  in  a  storm,  and  its 
fragments  have  been  carried  away.  The  picturesque 
manor  house  not  far  distant  was  once  the  home  of 
Admiral  Penn,  father  of  William  Penn  the  famous 
Quaker.^  All  the  trees  of  the  region  have,  of  course, 
waxed  and  expanded,  —  not  forgetting  the  neighbouring 

1  William  Penn  and  his  children  are  buried  in  the  little  Jordans  grave- 
yard, not  many  miles  away.  The  visitor  to  Stoke-Pogis  should  not  omit  a 
visit  to  Upton  church,  Burnham  village,  and  Binfield.  Pope  lived  at  Bin- 
field  when  he  wrote  his  poem  on  Windsor  Forest.  Upton  claims  to  have 
had  a  share  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Elegy,  but  Stoke-Pogis  was  unques- 
tionably his  place  of  residence  when  he  wrote  it.  Langley  Marish  ought  to 
be  visited  also,  and  Horton  —  where  Milton  wrote  "  L' Allegro,"  "  II  Pen- 
seroso,"  and  "  Comus."  Chalfont  St.  Peter  is  accessible,  where  still  is 
standing  the  house  in  which  Milton  finished  Paradise  Lost  and  began 
Paradise  Regained ;  and  from  there  a  short  drive  will  take  you  to  Beacons- 
field,  where  you  may  see  Edmund  Burke's  tablet,  in  the  church,  and  the 
monument  to  Waller,  in  the  churchyard. 


206  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

beeches  of  Burnham,  among  which  he  loved  to  wander, 
and  where  he  might  often  have  been  found,  sitting  with 
his  book,  at  some  gnarled  wreath  of  "  old  fantastic 
roots."  But  in  its  general  characteristics,  its  rustic 
homeliness  and  peaceful  beauty,  this  "  glimmering  land- 
scape," immortalised  in  his  verse,  is  the  same  on  which 
his  living  eyes  have  looked.  There  was  no  need  to 
seek  for  him  in  any  special  spot.  The  house  in  which 
he  once  lived  might,  no  doubt,  be  discovered;  but  every 
nook  and  vista,  every  green  lane  and  upland  lawn  and 
ivy-mantled  tower  of  this  delicious  solitude  is  haunted 
with  his  presence. 

The  night  is  coming  on  and  the  picture  will  soon  be 
dark  ;  but  never  while  memory  lasts  can  it  fade  out  of  the 
heart.  What  a  blessing  would  be  ours,  if  only  we  could 
hold  forever  that  exaltation  of  the  spirit,  that  sweet,  re- 
signed serenity,  that  pure  freedom  from  all  the  passions 
of  nature  and  all  the  cares  of  life,  which  comes  upon 
us  in  such  a  place  as  this  !  Alas,  and  again  alas  !  Even 
with  the  thought  this  golden  mood  begins  to  melt  away  ; 
even  with  the  thought  comes  our  dismissal  from  its 
influence.  Nor  will  it  avail  us  anything  now  to  linger 
at  the  shrine.  Fortunate  is  he,  though  in  bereavement 
and  regret,  who  parts  from  beauty  while  yet  her  kiss  is 
warm  upon  his  lips,  —  waiting  not  for  the  last  farewell 
word,  hearing  not  the  last  notes  of  the  music,  seeing 
not  the  last  gleams  of  sunset  as  the  light  dies  from  the 
sky.  It  was  a  sad  parting,  but  the  memory  of  the  place 
can  never  now  be  despoiled  of  its  loveliness.  As  I  write 
these  words  I  stand  again  in  the  cool  and  dusky  silence 
of  the  poet's  church,  with  its  air  of  stately  age  and  its 
fragrance  of  cleanliness,  while  the  light  of  the  western 


XVII 


STOKE-POGIS   AND   THOMAS   GRAY 


207 


sun,  broken  into  rays  of  gold  and  ruby,  streams  through 
the  painted  windows  and  softly  falls  upon  the  quaint 
little  galleries  and  decorous  pews ;  and,  looking  forth 
through  the  low,  arched  door,  I  see  the  dark  and  melan- 
choly boughs  of  the  dreaming  yew-tree,  and,  nearer,  a 
shadow  of  rippling  leaves  in  the  clear  sunshine  of  the 
churchway  path.  And  all  the  time  a  gentle  voice  is 
whispering,  in  the  chambers  of  thought  — 

"  No  farther  seek  his  merits  to  disclose, 

Or  draw  his  frailties  from  their  dread  abode : 
(There  they  alike  in  trembling  hope  repose), 
The  bosom  of  his  Father  and  his  God." 


CHAPTER    XVIII 


AT    THE    GRAVE    OF    COLERIDGE 


MONG  the  deeply  meditative,  melodious, 
and  eloquent  poems  of  Wordsworth  there 
is  one  —  about  the  burial  of  Ossian  — 
that  glances  at  the  question  of  fitness  in 
a  place  of  sepulchre.  Not  always,  for 
the  illustrious  dead,  has  the  final  couch  of  rest 
been  rightly  chosen.  We  think  with  resignation, 
and  with  a  kind  of  pride,  of  Keats  and  Shelley  in 
the  little  Protestant  burial-ground  at  Rome.  Every 
heart  is  touched  at  the  spectacle  of  Garrick  and  John- 
son sleeping  side  by  side  in  Westminster  Abbey.  It 
was  right  that  the  dust  of  Dean  Stanley  should  mingle 
with  the  dust  of  poets  and  of  kings;  and  to  see  —  as 
the  present  writer  did,  only  a  little  while  ago  —  fresh 
flowers  on  the  stone  that  covers  him,  in  the  chapel  of 
Henry  the  Seventh,  was  to  feel  a  tender  gladness  and 
solemn  content.  Shakespeare's  grave,  in  the  chancel  of 
Stratford  church,  awakens  the  same  ennobling  awe  and 
melancholy  pleasure  ;  and  it  is  with  kindred  feeling  that 
you  linger  at  the  tomb  of  Gray.     But  who  can  be  con- 

208 


CHAP,  xviii         AT  THE  GRAVE   Ol''   COLERIDGE  209 

tent  that  poor  Letitia  Landon  should  sleep  beneath  the 
pavement  of  a  barrack,  with  soldiers  trampling  over 
her  dust?  One  might  almost  think,  sometimes,  that  the 
spirit  of  calamity,  which  follows  certain  persons  through- 
out the  whole  of  life,  had  pursued  them  even  in  death, 
to  haunt  about  their  repose  and  to  mar  all  the  gentle- 
ness of  association  that  ought  to  hallow  it.  Chatterton, 
a  pauper  and  a  suicide,  was  huddled  into  a  workhouse 
graveyard,  the  very  place  of  which  —  in  Shoe  Lane, 
covered  now  by  Farringdon  Market — has  disappeared. 
Otway,  miserable  in  his  love  for  Elizabeth  Barry,  the 
actress,  and  said  to  have  starved  to  death  in  the  Minories, 
near  the  Tower  of  London,  was  laid  in  a  vault  of  St. 
Clement  Danes,  in  the  middle  of  the  Strand,  where 
never  the  green  leaves  rustle,  but  where  the  roar  of  the 
mighty  city  pours  on  in  continual  tumult.  That  church 
holds  also  the  remains  of  William  Mountfort,  the  actor, 
slain  in  a  brawl  by  Lord  Mohun ;  of  Nat  Lee,  "  the 
mad  poet  "  ;  of  George  Powell,  the  tragedian,  of  brilliant 
and  deplorable  memory ;  and  of  the  handsome  Hilde- 
brand  Horden,  cut  off  by  a  violent  death  in  the  spring- 
time of  his  youth.  Hildebrand  Horden  was  the  son  of 
a  clergyman  of  Twickenham  and  lived  in  the  reign  of 
William  and  Mary.  Dramatic  chronicles  say  that  he  was 
possessed  of  great  talent  as  an  actor,  and  of  remark- 
able personal  beauty.  He  was  stabbed,  in  a  quarrel,  at 
the  Rose  Tavern  ;  and  after  he  had  been  laid  out  for 
the  grave,  such  was  the  lively  feminine  interest  in  his 
handsome  person,  many  ladies  came,  some  masked  and 
others  openly,  to  view  him  in  his  shroud.  This  is  men- 
tioned in  Colley  Gibber's  Apology.  Gharles  Goffey,  the 
dramatist,  author  of    TJic  Devil  upon   Two   Sticks,   and 


210  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  cHap. 

Other  plays,  lies  in  the  vaults  of  St.  Clement ;  as  like- 
wise does  Thomas  Rymer,  historiographer  for  William 
III.,  successor  to  Shadwell,  and  author  of  Fcedera,  in 
seventeen  volumes.  In  the  church  of  St.  Clement  you 
may  see  the  pew  in  which  Dr.  Johnson  habitually  sat 
when  he  attended  divine  service  there.  It  was  his 
favourite  church.  The  pew  is  in  the  gallery ;  and  to 
those  who  honour  the  passionate  integrity  and  fervent, 
devout  zeal  of  the  stalwart  old  champion  of  letters,  it 
is  indeed  a  sacred  shrine.  Henry  Mossop,  one  of  the 
stateliest  of  stately  actors,  perishing,  by  slow  degrees, 
of  penury  and  grief,  —  which  he  bore  in  proud  silence, 
—  found  a  refuge,  at  last,  in  the  barren  gloom  of  Chelsea 
churchyard.  Theodore  Hook,  the  cheeriest  spirit  of  his 
time,  the  man  who  filled  every  hour  of  life  with  the  sun- 
shine of  his  wit  and  was  wasted  and  degraded  by  his 
own  brilliancy,  rests,  close  by  Bishop  Sherlock,  in  Ful- 
ham  churchyard,  —  one  of  the  dreariest  spots  in  the 
suburbs  of  London.  Perhaps  it  does  not  much  signify, 
when  once  the  play  is  over,  in  what  oblivion  our  crum- 
bling relics  are  hidden  away.  Yet  to  most  human 
creatures  these  are  sacred  things,  and  many  a  loving 
heart,  for  all  time  to  come,  will  choose  a  consecrated  spot 
for  the  repose  of  the  dead,  and  will  echo  the  tender 
words  of  Longfellow,  —  so  truly  expressive  of  a  univer- 
sal and  reverent  sentiment  — 

"Take  them,  O  Grave,  and  let  them  lie 
Folded  upon  thy  narrow  shelves, 
As  garments  by  the  soul  laid  by 
And  precious  only  to  ourselves." 

One  of   the  most  impressive    of   the    many  literary 
pilgrimages  that  I  have  made  was  that  which  brought 


xviu  AT  THE   GkAVE   OF   COLERIDGE  211 

me  to  the  house  in  which  Coleridge  died,  and  the  place 
where  he  was  buried.  The  student  needs  not  to  be 
told  that  this  poet,  born  in  1772,  the  year  after  Gray's 
death,  bore  the  white  lilies  of  pure  literature  till  1834, 
when  he  too  entered  into  his  rest.  The  last  nineteen 
years  of  the  life  of  Coleridge  were  spent  in  a  house  at 
Highgate ;  and  there,  within  a  few  steps  of  each  other, 
the  visitor  may  behold  his  dwelling  and  his  tomb.  The 
house  is  one  in  a  block  of  dwellings,  situated  in  what  is 
called  the  Grove  —  a  broad,  embowered  street,  a  little 
way  from  the  centre  of  the  village.  There  are  gardens 
attached  to  these  houses,  both  in  the  front  and  the  rear, 
and  the  smooth  and  peaceful  roadside  walks  in  the 
Grove  itself  are  pleasantly  shaded  by  elms  of  noble  size 
and  abundant  foliage.  These  were  young  trees  when 
Coleridge  saw  them,  and  all  this  neighbourhood,  in  his 
day,  was  but  thinly  settled.  Looking  from  his  chamber 
window  he  could  see  the  dusky  outlines  of  sombre  Lon- 
don, crowned  with  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's  on  the  south- 
ern horizon,  while,  more  near,  across  a  fertile  and 
smiling  valley,  the  gray  spire  of  Hampstead  church 
would  bound  his  prospect,  rising  above  the  verdant 
woodland  of  Caen.i  In  front  were  beds  of  flowers,  and 
all  around  he  might  hear  the  songs  of  birds  that  filled 
the  fragrant  air  with  their  happy,  careless  music.  Not 
far  away  stood  the  old  church  of  Highgate,  long  since 
destroyed,  in  which  he  used  to  worship,  and  close  by 

1  "Come  in  the  first  stage,  so  as  either  to  walk, or  to  be  driven  in  Mr. 
Oilman's  gig,  to  Caen  wood  and  its  delicious  groves  and  alleys,  the  finest 
in  England,  a  grand  cathedral  aisle  of  giant  lime-trees,  Pope's  favourite 
composition  walk,  when  with  the  old  Earl." —  Coleridge  to  Crabb  Robinson. 
Highgate,  June  1 81 7 


212 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP. 


was  the  Gate  House  inn,  primitive,  quaint,  and  cosy, 
which  still  is  standing,  to  comfort  the  weary  traveller 
with  its  wholesome  hospitality.      Highgate,  with  all  its 

rural  peace,  must 
have  been  a  bus- 
tling place  in  the 
old  times,  for  all 
the  travel  went 
through  it  that  passed 
either  into  or  out  of 
London  by  the  great 
north  road,  —  that  road 
in  which  Whittington 
heard  the  prophetic  sum- 
mons of  the  bells,  and  where 
may  still  be  seen,  suitably 
and  rightly  marked,  the  site  of  the 
stone  on  which  he  sat  to  rest. 
Here,  indeed,  the  coaches  used  to 
halt,  either  to  feed  or  to  change 
horses,  and  here  the  many  neglected 
little  taverns  still  remaining,  with 
their  odd  names  and  their  swinging 
signs,  testify  to  the  discarded  cus- 
toms of  a  bygone  age.  Some  years 
ago  a  new  road  was  cut,  so  that 
travellers  might  wind  around  the  hill,  and  avoid  climb- 
ing the  steep  ascent  to  the  village  ;  and  since  then  the 
grass  has  begun  to  grow  in  the  streets.  But  such  bustle 
as  once  enlivened  the  solitude  of  Highgate  could  never 
have  been  otherwise  than  agreeable  diversion  to  its 
inhabitants;  while  for  Coleridge  himself,  as  we  can  well 


The  White   Hart. 


XVIII 


AT  THE   GRAVE   OF   COLERIDGE  213 


imagine,  the  London  coach  was  welcome  indeed,  that 
brought  to  his  door  such  well-loved  friends  as  Charles 
Lamb,  Joseph  Henry  Green,  Crabb  Robinson,  Words- 
worth, or  Talfourd. 

To  this  retreat  the  author  of  The  Ancient  Mariner 
withdrew  in  1815,  to  live  with  his  friend  James  Oilman, 
a  surgeon,  who  had  undertaken  to  rescue  him  from  the 
demon  of  ojDium,  but  who,  as  De  Quincey  intimates, 
was  lured  by  the  poet  into  the  service  of  the  very  fiend 
whom  both  had  striven  to  subdue.  It  was  his  last 
refuge,  and  he  never  left  it  till  he  was  released  from 
life.  As  you  ramble  in  that  quiet  neighbourhood  your 
fancy  will  not  fail  to  conjure  up  his  placid  figure,  —  the 
silver  hair,  the  pale  face,  the  great,  luminous,  changeful 
blue  eyes,  the  somewhat  portly  form  clothed  in  black 
raiment,  the  slow,  feeble  walk,  the  sweet,  benignant 
manner,  the  voice  that  was  perfect  melody,  and  the 
inexhaustible  talk  that  was  the  flow  of  a  golden  sea  of 
eloquence  and  wisdom.  Coleridge  was  often  seen  walk- 
ing there,  with  a  book  in  his  hand ;  and  the  children  of 
the  village  knew  him  and  loved  him.  His  presence  is 
impressed  forever  upon  the  place,  to  haunt  and  to  hallow 
it.  He  was  a  very  great  man.  The  wings  of  his  imagi- 
nation wave  easily  in  the  opal  air  of  the  highest  heaven. 
The  power  and  majesty  of  his  thought  are  such  as  estab- 
lish forever  in  the  human  mind  the  conviction  of  per- 
sonal immortality.  Yet  how  forlorn  the  ending  that 
this  stately  soul  was  enforced  to  make !  For  more  than 
thirty  years  he  was  the  slave  of  opium.  It  blighted  his 
home ;  it  alienated  his  wife ;  it  ruined  his  health ;  it 
made  him  utterly  wretched.  "  I  have  been,  through  a 
large  portion  of  my  later  life,"  he  wrote,  in   1834,  "a 


214  SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND  chap,  xviii 

sufferer,  sorely  afflicted  with  bodily  pains,  languor,  and 
manifold  infirmities."  But  behind  all  this,  —  more 
dreadful  still  and  harder  to  bear,  —  was  he  not  the  slave 
of  some  ingrained  perversity  of  the  mind  itself,  some 
helpless  and  hopeless  irresolution  of  character,  some 
enervating  spell  of  that  sublime  yet  pitiable  dejection 
of  Hamlet,  which  kept  him  forever  at  war  with  himself, 
and,  last  of  all,  cast  him  out  upon  the  homeless  ocean 
of  despair,  to  drift  away  into  ruin  and  death  ?  There 
are  shapes  more  awful  than  his,  in  the  records  of  liter- 
ary history,  —  the  ravaged,  agonising  form  of  Swift,  for 
instance,  and  the  wonderful,  desolate  face  of  Byron  ; 
but  there  is  no  figure  more  forlorn  and  pathetic. 

This  way  the  memory  of  Coleridge  came  upon  me, 
standing  at  his  grave.  He  should  have  been  laid  in 
some  wild,  free  place,  where  the  grass  could  grow  above 
him  and  the  trees  could  wave  their  branches  over  his 
head.  They  placed  him  in  a  ponderous  tomb,  of  gray 
stone,  in  Highgate  churchyard,  and  in  later  times  they 
have  reared  a  new  building  above  it,  —  the  grammar- 
school  of  the  village,  —  so  that  now  the  tomb,  fenced 
round  with  iron,  is  in  a  cold,  barren,  gloomy  crypt,  ac- 
cessible indeed  from  the  churchyard,  through  several 
arches,  but  grim  and  doleful  in  all  its  surroundings ;  as 
if  the  evil  and  cruel  fate  that  marred  his  life  were  still 
triumphant  over  his  ashes. 


CHAPTER   XIX 


ON    BARNET    BATTLE-FIELD 


N  England,  as  elsewhere,  every  historic 
spot  is  occupied  ;  and  of  course  it  some- 
times happens,  at  such  a  spot,  that  its 
association  is  marred  and  its  sentiment 
almost  destroyed  by  the  presence  of  the 
persons  and  the  interests  of  to-day.  The  visitor  to 
such  places  must  carry  with  him  not  only  knowledge 
and  sensibility  but  imagination  and  patience.  He  will 
not  find  the  way  strewn  with  roses  nor  the  atmosphere 
of  poetry  ready-made  for  his  enjoyment.  That  atmos- 
phere, indeed,  for  the  most  part  —  especially  in  the 
cities  —  he  must  himself  supply.  Relics  do  not  robe 
themselves  for  exhibition.  The  Past  is  utterly  indiffer- 
ent to  its  worshippers.  All  manner  of  little  obstacles, 
too,  will  arise  before  the  pilgrim,  to  thwart  him  in  his 
search.  The  mental  strain  and  bewilderment,  the  inev- 
itable physical  weariness,  the  soporific  influence  of  the 
climate,  the  tumult  of  the  streets,  the  frequent  and  dis- 
heartening spectacle  of  poverty,  squalor,  and  vice,  the 
capricious  and  untimely  rain,  the  inconvenience  of  long 

215 


216  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

distances,  the  ill-timed  arrival  and  consequent  disap- 
pointment, the  occasional  nervous  sense  of  loneliness  and 
insecurity,  the  inappropriate  boor,  the  ignorant,  garru- 
lous porter,  the  extortionate  cabman,  and  the  jeering 
bystander — all  these  must  be  regarded  with  resolute 
indifference  by  him  who  would  ramble,  pleasantly  and 
profitably,  in  the  footprints  of  English  history.  Every- 
thing depends,  in  other  words,  upon  the  eyes  with 
which  you  observe  and  the  spirit  which  you  impart. 
Never  was  a  keener  truth  uttered  than  in  the  couplet 
of  Wordsworth  — 

"Minds  that  have  nothing  to  confer 
Find  little  to  perceive." 

To  the  philosophic  stranger,  however,  even  this 
prosaic  occupancy  of  historic  places  is  not  without 
its  pleasurable,  because  humorous,  significance.  Such 
an  observer  in  England  will  sometimes  be  amused  as 
well  as  impressed  by  a  sudden  sense  of  the  singular 
incidental  position  into  which  —  partly  through  the 
lapse  of  years,  and  partly  through  a  peculiarity  of 
national  character  —  the  scenes  of  famous  events,  not 
to  say  the  events  themselves,  have  gradually  drifted. 
I  thought  of  this  one  night,  when,  in  Whitehall  Gar- 
dens, I  was  looking  at  the  statue  of  James  the  Second, 
and  a  courteous  policeman  came  up  and  silently  turned 
the  light  of  his  bull's-eye  upon  the  inscription.  A 
scene  of  more  incongruous  elements,  or  one  suggestive 
of  a  more  serio-comic  contrast,  could  not  be  imagined. 
I  thought  of  it  again  when  standing  on  the  village 
green  near  Barnet,  and  viewing,  amid  surroundings 
both  pastoral  and  ludicrous,   the  column  which   there 


XIX  ON   BARNET   BATTLE-FIELD  217 

commemorates  the  defeat  and  death  of  the  great 
Earl  of  Warwick,  and,  consequently,  the  final  tri- 
umph of  the  Crown  over  the  last  of  the  Barons  of 
England. 

It  was  toward  the  close  of  a  cool  summer  day,  and  of 
a  long  drive  through  the  beautiful  hedgerows  of  sweet 
and  verdurous  Middlesex,  that  I  came  to  the  villages  of 
Barnet  and  Hadley,  and  went  over  the  field  of  King 
Edward's  victory, — that  fatal  glorious  field,  on  which 
Gloster  showed  such  resolute  valour,  and  where  Neville, 
supreme  and  magnificent  in  disaster,  fought  on  foot,  to 
make  sure  that  himself  might  go  down  in  the  stormy  death 
of  all  his  hopes.  More  than  four  hundred  years  have 
drifted  by  since  that  misty  April  morning  when  the 
star  of  Warwick  was  quenched  in  blood,  and  ten  thou- 
sand men  were  slaughtered  to  end  the  strife  between  the 
Barons  and  the  Crown  ;  yet  the  results  of  that  conflict 
are  living  facts  in  the  government  of  England  now,  and 
in  the  fortunes  of  her  inhabitants.  If  you  were  unaware 
of  the  solid  simplicity  and  proud  reticence  of  the  Eng- 
lish character,  —  leading  it  to  merge  all  its  shining 
deeds  in  one  continuous  fabric  of  achievement,  like 
jewels  set  in  a  cloth  of  gold,  —  you  might  expect  to  find 
this  spot  adorned  with  a  structure  of  more  than  common 
splendour.  What  you  actually  do  find  there  is  a  plain 
obelisk,  standing  in  the  middle  of  a  common,  at  the 
junction  of  several  roads,  —  the  chief  of  which  are 
those  leading  to  Hatfield  and  St.  Albans,  in  Hertford- 
shire, —  and  on  one  side  of  this  column  you  may  read, 
in  letters  of  faded  black,  the  comprehensive  statement 
that  "  Here  was  fought  the  famous  battle  between 
Edward   the   Fourth  and  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  April 


Column  on  Barnet  Battle-Field. 


CHAP.  XIX  ON   BARNET   BATTLE-FIELD  219 

14th,  anno   1471,  in  which  the  Earl  was  defeated  and 
slain."! 

In  my  reverie,  standing  at  the  foot  of  this  humble, 
weather-stained  monument,  I  saw  the  long  range  of 
Barnet  hills,  mantled  with  grass  and  flowers  and  with 
the  golden  haze  of  a  morning  in  spring,  swarming  with 
gorgeous  horsemen  and  glittering  with  spears  and  ban- 
ners ;  and  I  heard  the  vengeful  clash  of  arms,  the  hor- 
rible neighing  of  maddened  steeds,  the  furious  shouts 
of  onset,  and  all  the  nameless  cries  and  groans  of  battle, 
commingled  in  a  thrilling  yet  hideous  din.  Here  rode 
King  Edward,  intrepid,  handsome,  and  stalwart,  with 
his  proud,  cruel  smile  and  his  long,  yellow  hair.  There 
Warwick  swung  his  great  two-handed  sword,  and  mowed 
his  foes  like  grain.  And  there  the  iiery  form  of  Richard, 
splendid  in  burnished  steel,  darted  like  the  scorpion, 
dealing  death  at  every  blow ;  till  at  last,  in  fatal  mis- 
chance, the  sad  star  of  Oxford,  assailed  by  its  own 
friends,  was  swept  out  of  the  field,  and  the  fight  drove, 
raging,  into  the  valleys  of  Hadley.  How  strangely, 
though,  did  this  fancied  picture  contrast  with  the  actual 
scene  before  me !  At  a  little  distance,  all  around  the 
village  green,  the  peaceful,  embowered  cottages  kept 
their  sentinel  watch.  Over  the  careless,  straggling 
grass  went  the  shadow  of  the  passing  cloud.  Not  a 
sound  was  heard,  save  the  rustle  of  leaves  and  the  low 
laughter  of  some  little  children,  playing  near  the 
monument.  Close  by  and  at  rest  was  a  flock  of  geese, 
couched  upon  the  cool  earth,  and,  as  their  custom  is, 
supremely  contented  with  themselves  and  all  the  world. 

^  The  words  "  stick  no  bills  "  have  been  intrusively  added,  just  below 
this  inscription,  -^ 


220 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


CHAP.    XIX 


And  at  the  foot  of  the  cokimn,  stretched  out  at  his  full 
length,  in  tattered  garments  that  scarcely  covered  his 
nakedness,  reposed  the  British  labourer,  fast  asleep 
upon  the  sod.  No  more  Wars  of  the  Roses  now ;  bi't 
calm  retirement,  smiling  plenty,  cool  western  winds,  and 
sleep  and  peace  — 

"  With  a  red  ro.se  and  a  white  rose 
Leaning,  nodding  at  the  walL" 


Farm-koHsc. 


■■i 

IK' 

flFlFS 

^■M^r^fj^ffWII 

^^H 

^tf'^JBK 

p 

1 

^P 

^^B 

W'J 

"^^ 

^ 

|Sp^ 

" '-    'M^m 

B^i^,.     1 

W^  "'W'  \ 

f^ 

ll^ 

is 

||^A'a'>-_ 

'b3>'^'''»^i^ttw 

fe  i^  -^ 

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^^ 

CHAPTER   XX 


A    GLIMPSE    OF    CANTERBURY 


NE  of  the  most  impressive  spots  on  earth, 
and  one  that  especially  teaches  —  with 
silent,  pathetic  eloquence  and  solemn 
admonition  —  the  great  lesson  of  con- 
trast, the  incessant  flow  of  the  ages  and 
the  inevitable  decay  and  oblivion  of  the  past,  is  the 
ancient  city  of  Canterbury.  Years  and  not  merely  days 
of  residence  there  are  essential  to  the  adequate  and 
right  comprehension  of  that  wonderful  place.  Yet 
even  an  hour  passed  among  its  shrines  will  teach 
you,  as  no  printed  word  has  ever  taught,  the  meas- 
ureless power  and  the  sublime  beauty  of  a  perfect 
religious  faith ;  while,  as  you  stand  and  meditate  in  the 
shadow  of  the  gray  cathedral  walls,  the  pageant  of  a 
thousand  years  of  history  will  pass  before  you  like  a 
dream.  The  city  itself,  with  its  bright,  swift  river  (the 
Stour),  its  opulence  of  trees  and  flowers,  its  narrow 
winding  streets,  its  numerous  antique  buildings,  its 
many  towers,  its  fragments  of  ancient  wall  and  gate, 
its  formal  decorations,  its  air  of  perfect  cleanliness  and 

221 


CHAP.  XX  A   GLIMPSE   OF  CANTERBURY  223 

thoughtful  gravity,  its   beautiful,  umbrageous  suburbs, 

—  where  the  scarlet  of  the  poppies  and  the  russet  red 
of  the  clover  make  one  vast  rolling  sea  of  colour  and  of 
fragrant  delight,  —  and,  to  crown  all,  its  stately  char- 
acter of  wealth  without  ostentation  and  industry  without 
tumult,  must  prove  to  you  a  deep  and  satisfying  com- 
fort. But,  through  all  this,  pervading  and  surmounting 
it  all,  the  spirit  of  the  place  pours  in  upon  your  heart, 
and  floods  your  whole  being  with  the  incense  and  organ 
music  of  passionate,  jubilant  devotion. 

It  was  not  superstition  that  reared  those  gorgeous 
fanes  of  worship  which  still  adorn,  even  while  they  no 
longer  consecrate,  the  ecclesiastic  cities  of  the  old  world. 
In  the  age  of  Augustine,  Dunstan,  and  Ethelnoth  human- 
ity had  begun  to  feel  its  profound  and  vital  need  of  a 
sure  and  settled  reliance  on  religious  faith.  The  drift- 
ing spirit,  worn  with  sorrow,  doubt,  and  self-conflict, 
longed  to  be  at  peace  —  longed  for  a  refuge  equally 
from  the  evils  and  tortures  of  its  own  condition  and  the 
storms  and  perils  of  the  world.  In  that  longing  it 
recognised  its  immortality  and  heard  the  voice  of  its 
Divine  Parent;  and  out  of  the  ecstatic  joy  and  utter 
abandonment  of  its  new-born,  passionate,  responsive 
faith,  it  built  and  consecrated  those  stupendous  temples, 

—  rearing  them  with  all  its  love  no  less  than  all  its 
riches  and  all  its  power.  There  was  no  wealth  that  it 
would  not  give,  no  toil  that  it  would  not  perform,  and 
no  sacrifice  that  it  would  not  make,  in  the  accomplish- 
ment of  its  sacred  task.  It  was  grandly,  nobly,  terribly 
in  earnest,  and  it  achieved  a  work  that  is  not  only  sub- 
lime in  its  poetic  majesty  but  measureless  in  the  scope 
and  extent  of  its  moral  and  spiritual  influence.     It  has 


Butchery  Lane,  Canterbury. 


CHAP.  XX  A  GLIMPSE   OF   CANTERBURY  225 

left  to  succeeding  ages  not  only  a  legacy  of  permanent 
beauty,  not  only  a  sublime  symbol  of  religious  faith,  but 
an  everlasting  monument  to  the  loveliness  and  greatness 
that  are  inherent  in  human  nature.  No  creature  with 
a  human  heart  in  his  bosom  can  stand  in  such  a  build- 
ing as  Canterbury  cathedral  without  feeling  a  greater 
love  and  reverence  than  he  ever  felt  before,  alike  for 
God  and  man. 

On  a  day  (July  27,  1882)  when  a  class  of  the  boys  of 
the  King's  School  of  Canterbury  was  graduated  the 
present  writer  chanced  to  be  a  listener  to  the  impressive 
and  touching  sermon  that  was  preached  before  them,  in 
the  cathedral ;  wherein  they  were  tenderly  admonished 
to  keep  unbroken  their  associations  with  their  school- 
days and  to  remember  the  lessons  of  the  place  itself. 
That  counsel  must  have  sunk  deep  into  every  mind.  It 
is  difficult  to  understand  how  any  person  reared  amid 
such  scenes  and  relics  could  ever  cast  away  their  hal- 
lowing influence.  Even  to  the  casual  visitor  the  bare 
thought  of  the  historic  treasures  that  are  garnered  in 
this  temple  is,  by  itself,  sufficient  to  implant  in  the 
bosom  a  memorable  and  lasting  awe.  For  more  than 
twelve  hundred  years  the  succession  of  the  Archbishops 
of  Canterbury  has  remained  substantially  unbroken. 
There  have  been  ninety-three  "  primates  of  all  Eng- 
land," of  whom  fifty-three  were  buried  in  the  cathedral, 
and  here  the  tombs  of  fifteen  of  them  are  still  visi- 
ble. Here  was  buried  the  sagacious,  crafty,  inflexible, 
indomitable  Henry  the  Fourth,  —  that  Hereford  whom 
Shakespeare  has  described  and  interpreted  with  match- 
less, immortal  eloquence,  —  and  here,  cut  off  in  the 
morning  of  his  greatness,  and  lamented  to  this  day  in 


226  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  xx 

the  hearts  of  the  English  people,  was  laid  the  body  of 
Edward  the  Black  Prince,  who  to  a  dauntless  valour 
and  terrible  prowess  in  war  added  a  high-souled,  hu- 
man, and  tender  magnanimity  in  conquest,  and  whom 
personal  virtues  and  shining  public  deeds  united  to 
make  the  ideal  hero  of  chivalry.  In  no  other  way  than 
by  personal  observance  of  such  memorials  can  historic 
reading  be  invested  with  a  perfect  and  permanent 
reality.  Over  the  tomb  of  the  Black  Prince,  with  its 
fine  recumbent  effigy  of  gilded  brass,  hang  the  gaunt- 
lets that  he  wore ;  and  they  tell  you  that  his  sword  for- 
merly hung  there,  but  that  Oliver  Cromwell  —  who 
revealed  his  iconoclastic  and  unlovely  character  in  mak- 
ing a  stable  of  this  cathedral  —  carried  it  away.  Close 
at  hand  is  the  tomb  of  the  wise,  just,  and  gentle  Car- 
dinal Pole,  simply  inscribed  "  Blessed  are  the  dead 
which  die  in  the  Lord  "  ;  and  you  may  touch  a  little, 
low  mausoleum  of  gray  stone,  in  which  are  the  ashes  of 
John  Morton,  that  Bishop  of  Ely  from  whose  garden  in 
Holborn  the  strawberries  were  brought  for  the  Duke  of 
Gloster,  on  the  day  when  he  condemned  the  accom- 
plished Hastings,  and  who  "  fled  to  Richmond,"  in  good 
time,  from  the  standard  of  the  dangerous  Protector. 
Standing  there,  I  could  almost  hear  the  resolute,  scorn- 
ful voice  of  Richard,  breathing  out,  in  clear,  implacable 
accents  — 

''Ely  with  Richmond  troubles  me  more  near 
Than  Buckingham  and  his  rash-levied  strength." 

The  astute  Morton,  when  Bosworth  was  over  and 
Richmond  had  assumed  the  crown  and  Bourchier  had 
died,  was   made    Archbishop    of    Canterbury ;    and  as 


^ 


^ 


ft, 


228  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap, 

such,  at  a  great  age,  he  passed  away.  A  few  hundred 
yards  from  his  place  of  rest,  in  a  vault  beneath  the 
Church  of  St.  Dunstan,  is  the  head  of  Sir  Thomas 
More  (the  body  being  in  St.  Peter's,  at  the  Tower  of 
London),  who  in  his  youth  had  been  a  member  of 
Morton's  ecclesiastical  household,  and  whose  greatness 
that  prelate  had  foreseen  and  prophesied.  Did  no 
shadow  of  the  scaffold  ever  fall  across  the  statesman's 
thoughts,  as  he  looked  upon  that  handsome,  manly  boy, 
and  thought  of  the  troublous  times  that  were  raging 
about  them  ?  Morton,  aged  ninety,  died  in  1 500  ;  More, 
aged  fifty-five,  in  1535.  Strange  fate,  indeed,  was  that, 
and  as  inscrutable  as  mournful,  which  gave  to  those 
who  in  life  had  been  like  father  and  son  such  a 
ghastly  association  in  death  !  ^  They  show  you  the 
place  where  Becket  was  murdered,  and  the  stone  steps, 
worn  hollow  by  the  thousands  upon  thousands  of  de- 
vout pilgrims  who,  in  the  days  before  the  Reformation, 
crept  up  to  weep  and  pray  at  the  costly,  resplendent 
shrine  of  St.  Thomas.  The  bones  of  Becket,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  were,  by  command  of  Henry  the  Eighth, 
burnt,  and  scattered  to  the  winds,  while  his  shrine  was 
pillaged  and  destroyed.  Neither  tomb  nor  scutcheon 
commemorates    him  here,  —  but  the  cathedral  itself  is 

1  St.  Dunstan's  church  was  connected  with  the  Convent  of  St.  Gregory. 
The  Roper  family,  in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  founded  a  chapel  in 
it,  in  which  are  two  marble  tombs,  commemorative  of  them,  and  under- 
neath which  is  their  burial  vault.  Margaret  Roper,  Sir  Thomas  More's 
daughter,  obtained  her  father's  head,  after  his  execution,  and  buried  it 
here.  The  vault  was  opened  in  1835,  —  when  a  new  pavement  was  laid 
in  the  chancel  of  this  church,  —  and  persons  descending  into  it  saw  the 
head,  in  a  leaden  box  shaped  like  a  beehive,  open  in  front,  set  in  a  niche 
in  the  wall,  behind  an  iron  grill. 


< 
a: 
Q 
UJ 
X 
H 

< 

a; 
D 
CQ 

oi. 
u 
H 

z 

< 
o 


KX  A   GLIMPSE   OF   CANTERBURY  229 

his  monument.  There  it  stands,  with  its  grand  columns 
and  glorious  arches,  its  towers  of  enormous  size  and 
its  long  vistas  of  distance,  so  mysterious  and  awful,  its 
gloomy  crypt  where  once  the  silver  lamps  sparkled  and 
the  smoking  censers  were  swung,  its  tombs  of  mighty 
warriors  and  statesmen,  its  frayed  and  crumbling  ban- 
ners, and  the  eternal,  majestic  silence  with  which  it 
broods  over  the  love,  ambition,  glory,  defeat,  and  an- 
guish of  a  thousand  years,  dissolved  now  and  ended  in 
a  little  dust !  As  the  organ  music  died  away  I  looked 
upward  and  saw  where  a  bird  was  wildly  flying  to  and 
fro,  through  the  vast  spaces  beneath  its  lofty  roof,  in 
the  vain  effort  to  find  some  outlet  of  escape.  Fit  em- 
blem, truly,  of  the  human  mind  which  strives  to  com- 
prehend and  to  utter  the  meaning  of  this  marvellous 
fabric  ! 


CHAPTER    XXI 


THE    SHRINES    OF    WARWICKSHIRE 


1882 


IGHT,  in  Stratford-upon-Avon  —  a  sum- 
mer night,  with  large,  solemn  stars,  a  cool 
and  fragrant  breeze,  and  the  stillness  of 
perfect  rest.  From  this  high  and  grassy- 
bank  I  look  forth  across  the  darkened 
meadows  and  the  smooth  and  shining  river,  and  see  the 
little  town  where  it  lies  asleep.  Hardly  a  light  is  any- 
where visible.  A  few  great  elms,  near  by,  are  nodding 
and  rustling  in  the  wind,  and  once  or  twice  a  drowsy 
bird-note  floats  up  from  the  neighbouring  thicket  that 
skirts  the  vacant,  lonely  road.  There,  at  some  distance, 
are  the  dim  arches  of  Clopton's  Bridge.  In  front  —  a 
graceful,  shapely  mass,  indistinct  in  the  starlight  —  rises 
the  fair  Memorial,  Stratford's  honour  and  pride.  Fur- 
ther off,  glimmering  through  the  tree-tops,  is  the  dusky 
spire  of  Trinity,  keeping  its  sacred  vigil  over  the  dust 
of  Shakespeare.  Nothing  here  is  changed.  The  same 
tranquil  beauty,  as  of  old,  hallows  this  place ;  the  same 
sense  of  awe  and  mystery  broods  over  its  silent  shrines 

230 


CHAP.  XXI         THE   SHRINES   OF   WARWICKSHIRE 


231 


of  everlasting  renown.  Long  and  weary  the  years  have 
been  since  last  I  saw  it ;  but  to-night  they  are  remem- 
bered only  as  a  fleeting  and  troubled  dream.  Here, 
once  more,  is  the  highest  and  noblest  companionship 
this  world  can  give.  Here,  once  more,  is  the  almost 
visible  presence  of  the  one  magician  who  can  lift  the 


'^'"i 


/:P 


fi^-% 


Stratford-  upon- A  von. 

soul  out  of  the  infinite  weariness  of  common  things  and 
give  it  strength  and  peace.  The  old  time  has  come 
back,  and  the  bloom  of  the  heart  that  I  thought  had  all 
faded  and  gone.  I  stroll  again  to  the  river's  brink, 
and  take  my  place  in  the  boat,  and,  trailing  my  hand 
in  the  dark  waters  of  the  Avon,  forget  every  trouble 
that  ever  I  have  known. 


232  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

It  is  often  said,  with  reference  to  memorable  places, 
that  the  best  view  always  is  the  first  view.  No  doubt 
the  accustomed  eye  sees  blemishes.  No  doubt  the 
supreme  moments  of  human  life  are  few  and  come  but 
once ;  and  neither  of  them  is  ever  repeated.  Yet  fre- 
quently it  will  be  found  that  the  change  is  in  ourselves 
and  not  in  the  objects  we  behold.  Scott  has  glanced  at 
this  truth,  in  a  few  mournful  lines,  written  toward  the 
close  of  his  heroic  and  beautiful  life.  Here  at  Stratford, 
however,  I  am  not  conscious  that  the  wonderful  charm 
of  the  place  is  in  any  degree  impaired.  The  town  still 
preserves  its  old-fashioned  air,  its  quaintness,  its  perfect 
cleanliness  and  order.  At  the  Shakespeare  cottage,  in 
the  stillness  of  the  room  where  he  was  born,  the  spirits 
of  mystery  and  reverence  still  keep  their  imperial  state. 
At  the  ancient  grammar-school,  with  its  pent-house  roof 
and  its  dark,  sagging  rafters,  you  still  may  see,  in  fancy, 
the  unwilling  schoolboy  gazing  upward  absently  at  the 
great,  rugged  timbers,  or  looking  wistfully  at  the  sun- 
shine, where  it  streams  through  the  little  lattice  windows 
of  his  prison.  New  Place,  with  its  lovely  lawn,  its  spa- 
cious garden,  the  ancestral  mulberry  and  the  ivy-covered 
well,  will  bring  the  poet  before  you,  as  he  lived  and 
moved,  in  the  meridian  of  his  greatness.  Cymbcline, 
The  Tempest,  and  A  Winter  s  Tale,  the  last  of  his  works, 
undoubtedly  were  written  here ;  and  this  alone  should 
make  it  a  hallowed  spot.  Here  he  blessed  his  young 
daughter  on  her  wedding  day ;  here  his  eyes  closed  in 
the  long  last  sleep  ;  and  from  this  place  he  was  carried 
to  his  grave  in  the  chancel  of  Stratford  church.  I  pass 
once  again  through  the  fragrant  avenue  of  limes,  the 
silent   churchyard  with  its  crumbling    monuments,  the 


*1S?*^'«SC~ 


STRATFORD   CHURCH. 


XXI  THE   SHRINES   OF   WARWICKSHIRE  233 

dim  porch,  the  twilight  of  the  venerable  temple,  and 
kneel  at  last  above  the  ashes  of  Shakespeare.  What 
majesty  in  this  triumphant  rest!  All  the  great  labour 
accomplished.  The  universal  human  heart  interpreted 
with  a  living  voice.  The  memory  and  the  imagination 
of  mankind  stored  forever  with  words  of  sublime  elo- 
quence and  images  of  immortal  beauty.  The  noble 
lesson  of  self-conquest  —  the  lesson  of  the  entire  ade- 
quacy of  the  resolute,  virtuous,  patient  human  will  — 
set  forth  so  grandly  that  all  the  world  must  see  its  mean- 
ing and  marvel  at  its  splendour.  And,  last  of  all,  death 
itself  shorn  of  its  terrors  and  made  a  trivial  thing. 

There  is  a  new  custodian  at  New  Place,  and  he  will 
show  you  the  little  museum  that  is  kept  there  —  includ- 
ing the  shovel-board  from  the  old  Falcon  tavern  across 
the  way,  on  which  the  poet  himself  might  have  played 
—  and  he  will  lead  you  through  the  gardens,  and  descant 
on  the  mulberry  and  on  the  ancient  and  still  unforgiven 
vandalism  of  the  Rev.  Francis  Gastrell,  by  whom  the 
Shakespeare  mansion  was  destroyed  (1759),  and  will 
pause  at  the  well,  and  at  the  fragments  of  the  founda- 
tion, covered  now  with  stout  screens  of  wire.  There  is 
a  fresh  and  fragrant  beauty  all  about  these  grounds,  an 
atmosphere  of  sunshine,  life,  comfort  and  elegance  of 
state,  that  no  observer  can  miss.  This  same  keeper 
also  has  the  keys  of  the  guild  chapel,  opposite,  on  which 
Shakespeare  looked  from  his  windows  and  his  garden, 
and  in  which  he  was  the  holder  of  two  sittings.  You 
will  enter  it  by  the  same  porch  through  which  he  walked, 
and  see  the  arch  and  columns  and  tall,  mullioned  win- 
dows on  which  his  gaze  has  often  rested.  The  interior  is 
cold  and  barren  now,  for  the  scriptural  wall-paintings, 


234  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

discovered  there  in  1804,  under  a  thick  coating  of  white- 
wash,   have   been    obliterated   and    the   wooden    pews, 
which  are  modern,  have  not  yet  been  embrowned  by 
age.     Yet  this  church,  known  beyond  question  as  one 
of  Shakespeare's  personal  haunts,  will   hold  you  with 
the  strongest  tie  of  reverence  and  sympathy.     At  his 
birthplace  everything  remains  unchanged.     The  gentle 
ladies  who  have  so  long  guarded  and  shown  it  still  have 
it  in  their  affectionate  care.     The  ceiling  of  the  room  in 
which  the  poet  was  born  —  the  room  that  contains  "  the 
Actor's  Pillar  "  and  the  thousands  of  signatures  on  walls 
and  windows — is  slowly  crumbling  to  pieces.     Every 
morning  little  particles  of  the  plaster  are  found  upon 
the  floor.    The  area  of  tiny,  delicate  iron  laths,  to  sustain 
this  ceiling,  has  more  than  doubled  (1882)  since  I  first 
saw  it,  in  1877.     It  was  on  the  ceiling  that  Lord  Byron 
wrote  his  name,  but  this  has  flaked  off  and  disappeared. 
In  the  museum  hall,  once  the  Swan  inn,  they  are  form- 
ing a  library ;  and  there  you  may  see  at  least  one  Shake- 
spearean relic  of   extraordinary  interest.     This   is   the 
MS.  letter  of    Richard    Quiney  —  whose    son    Thomas 
became,  in  1616,  the  husband  of  Shakespeare's  youngest 
daughter,  Judith —  asking  the  poet  for  the  loan  of  thirty 
pounds.     It  is  enclosed  between  plates  of   glass   in    a 
frame,  and  usually  kept  covered  with  a  cloth,  so  that 
the  sunlight  may  not  fade  the  ink.     The  date  of  this 
letter  is  October  25,   1598,  and  thirty  English  pounds 
then  was  a  sum  equivalent  to  about  six  hundred  dollars 
of  American  money  now.    This  is  the  only  letter  known 
to  be  in  existence  that  Shakespeare  received.      Miss 
Caroline  Chataway,  the  younger  of  the  ladies  who  keep 
this  house,  will  recite  to  you  its  text,  from  memory  — 


XXI  THE   SHRINES   OF   WARWICKSHIRE  ^^^ 

giving  a  delicious  old-fashioned  flavour  to  its  quaint 
phraseology  and  fervent  spirit,  as  rich  and  strange  as 
the  odour  of  the  wild  thyme  and  rosemary  that  grow 
in  her  garden  beds.  This  antique  touch  adds  a  wonder- 
ful charm  to  the  relics  of  the  past.  I  found  it  once 
more  when  sitting  in  the  chimney-corner  of  Anne 
Hathaway's  kitchen ;  and  again  in  the  lovely  little 
church  at  Charlecote,  where  a  simple,  kindly  woman, 
not  ashamed  to  reverence  the  place  and  the  dead,  stood 
with  me  at  the  tomb  of  the  Lucys,  and  repeated  from 
memory  the  tender,  sincere,  and  eloquent  epitaph  with 
which  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  thereon  commemorates  his  wife. 
The  lettering  is  small  and  indistinct  on  the  tomb,  but 
having  often  read  it  I  well  knew  how  correctly  it  was 
then  spoken.  Nor  shall  I  ever  read  it  again  without  think- 
ing of  that  kindly,  pleasant  voice,  the  hush  of  the  beauti- 
ful church,  the  afternoon  sunlight  streaming  through  the 
oriel  window,  and  —  visible  through  the  doorway  arch  — 
the  roses  waving  among  the  churchyard  graves. 

In  the  days  of  Shakespeare's  courtship,  when  he 
strolled  across  the  fields  to  Anne  Hathaway's  cottage  at 
Shottery,  his  path,  we  may  be  sure,  ran  through  wild 
pasture-land  and  tangled  thicket.  A  fourth  part  of 
England  at  that  time  was  a  wilderness,  and  the  entire 
population  of  that  country  did  not  exceed  five  millions 
of  persons.  The  Stratford-upon-Avon  of  to-day  is  still 
possessed  of  some  of  its  ancient  features ;  but  the 
region  round  about  it  then  must  have  been  rude  and 
wild  in  comparison  with  what  it  is  at  present.  If  you 
walk  in  the  foot-path  to  Shottery  now  you  will  pass  be- 
tween low  fences  and  along  the  margin  of  gardens,  — 
now  in  the  sunshine,  and  now  in  the  shadow  of  larch 


236  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

and  chestnut  and  elm,  while  the  sweet  air  blows  upon 
your  face  and  the  expeditious  rook  makes  rapid  wing  to 
the  woodland,  cawing  as  he  flies.  In  the  old  cottage, 
with  its  roof  of  thatch,  its  crooked  rafters,  its  odorous 
hedges  and  climbing  vines,  its  leafy  well  and  its  tan- 
gled garden,  everything  remains  the  same.  Mrs.  Mary 
Taylor  Baker,  the  last  living  descendant  of  the  Hatha- 
ways,  born  in  this  house,  always  a  resident  here,  and 
now  an  elderly  woman,  still  has  it  in  her  keeping,  and 
still  displays  to  you  the  ancient  carved  bedstead  in  the 
garret,  the  wooden  settle  by  the  kitchen  fireside,  the 
hearth  at  which  Shakespeare  sat,  the  great  blackened 
chimney  with  its  adroit  iron  "fish-back"  for  the  better 
regulation  of  the  tea-kettle,  and  the  brown  and  tattered 
Bible,  with  the  Hathaway  family  record.  Sitting  in  an 
old  arm-chair,  in  the  corner  of  Anne  Hathaway's  bed- 
room, I  could  hear,  in  the  perfumed  summer  stillness, 
the  low  twittering  of  birds,  whose  nest  is  in  the  cover- 
ing thatch  and  whose  songs  would  awaken  the  sleeper 
at  the  earliest  light  of  dawn.  A  better  idea  can  be 
obtained  in  this  cottage  than  in  either  the  birthplace  or 
any  other  Shakespearean  haunt  of  what  the  real  life 
actually  was  of  the  common  people  of  England  in 
Shakespeare's  day.  The  stone  floor  and  oak  timbers  of 
the  Hathaway  kitchen,  stained  and  darkened  in  the 
slow  decay  of  three  hundred  years,  have  lost  no  particle 
of  their  pristine  character.  The  occupant  of  the  cot- 
tage has  not  been  absent  from  it  more  than  a  week 
during  upward  of  half  a  century.  In  such  a  nook  the 
inherited  habits  of  living  do  not  alter.  "The  thing  that 
has  been  is  the  thing  that  shall  be,"  and  the  customs  of 
long  ago  are  the  customs  of  to-day. 


XXI 


THE   SHRINES   OF   WARWICKSPHRE 


237 


The  Red  Horse  inn  is  now  in  the  hands  of  William 
Gardner  Colbourne,  who  has  succeeded  his  uncle  Mr. 
Gardner,  and  it  is  brighter  than  of  old  —  without,  how- 
ever, having  parted  with  either  its  antique  furniture  or 
its  delightful  antique  ways.  The  old  mahogany  and 
wax-candle  period  has  not  ended  yet  in  this  happy 
place,  and  you  sink  to  sleep  on  a  snow-white  pillow,  soft 
as  down  and  fragrant  as  lavender.  One  important 
change  is  especially  to  be  remarked. 
They  have  made  a  niche  in  a  corner 
of  Washington  Irving's  parlour,  and 
in  it  have  placed  his  arm-chair,  re- 
cushioned  and  polished,  and  sequested 
from  touch  by  a  large  sheet  of  plate- 
glass.  The  relic  may  still  be  seen, 
but  the  pilgrim  can  sit  upon  it  no 
more.  Perhaps  it  might  be  well  to 
enshrine  "Geoffrey  Crayon's  Sceptre" 
in  a  somewhat  similar  way.  It  could 
be  fastened  to  a  shield,  displaying  the 
American  colours,  and  placed  in  this 
storied  room.  At  present  it  is  the  tenant  of  a  starred 
and  striped  bag,  and  keeps  its  state  in  the  seclusion  of 
a  bureau ;  nor  is  it  shown  except  upon  request  —  like 
the  beautiful  marble  statue  of  Donne,  in  his  shroud, 
niched  in  the  chancel  wall  of  St.  Paul's  cathedral. ^ 


Washington  Irving's 
Chair. 


1  A  few  effigies  are  all  that  remain  of  old  St.  Paul's.  The  most  impor- 
tant and  interesting  of  them  is  that  shrouded  statue  of  the  poet  John 
Donne,  who  was  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  from  1621  to  1631,  dying  in  the  latter 
year,  aged  58.  This  is  in  the  south  aisle  of  the  chancel,  in  a  niche  in  the 
wall.  You  will  not  see  it  unless  you  ask  the  privilege.  The  other  relics 
are  in  the  crypt  and  in  the  churchyard.  There  is  nothing  to  indicate 
the  place  of  the  grave  of  John  of  Gaunt  or  that  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney.  Old 
St.  Paul's  was  burned  September  2,  1666. 


238  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

One  of  the  strongest  instincts  of  the  English  character 
is  the  instinct  of  permanence.  It  acts  invohmtarily,  it 
pervades  the  national  life,  and,  as  Pope  said  of  the 
universal  soul,  it  operates  unspent.  Institutions  seem 
to  have  grown  out  of  human  nature  in  this  country, 
and  are  as  much  its  expression  as  blossoms,  leaves, 
and  flowers  are  the  expression  of  inevitable  law.  A 
custom,  in  England,  once  established,  is  seldom  or  never 
changed.  The  brilliant  career,  the  memorable  achieve- 
ment, the  great  character,  once  fulfilled,  takes  a  per- 
manent shape  in  some  kind  of  outward  and  visible 
memorial,  some  absolute  and  palpable  fact,  which 
thenceforth  is  an  accepted  part  of  the  history  of  the 
land  and  the  experience  of  its  people.  England  means 
stability  —  the  fireside  and  the  altar,  home  here  and 
heaven  hereafter ;  and  this  is  the  secret  of  the  power 
that  she  wields  in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  and  the  charm 
that  she  diffuses  over  the  domain  of  thought.  Such  a 
temple  as  St.  Paul's  cathedral,  such  a  palace  as  Hamp- 
ton Court,  such  a  castle  as  that  of  Windsor  or  that  of 
Warwick,  is  the  natural,  spontaneous  expression  of  the 
English  instinct  of  permanence  ;  and  it  is  in  memorials 
like  these  that  England  has  written  her  history,  with 
symbols  that  can  perish  only  with  time  itself.  At  in- 
tervals her  latent  animal  ferocity  breaks  loose  —  as  it 
did  under  Henry  the  Eighth,  under  Mary,  under  Crom- 
well, and  under  James  the  Second,  —  and  for  a  brief 
time  ramps  and  bellows,  striving  to  deface  and  deform 
the  surrounding  structure  of  beauty  that  has  been  slowly 
and  painfully  reared  out  of  her  deep  heart  and  her  sane 
civilisation.  But  the  tears  of  human  pity  soon  quench 
the  fire  of  Smithfield,  and  it  is  only  for  a  little  while 


XXI  THE   SHRINES   OF   WARWICKSHIRE  239 

that  the  Puritan  soldiers  play  at  nine-pins  in  the  nave 
of  St.  Paul's.  This  fever  of  animal  impulse,  this  wild 
revolt  of  petulant  impatience,  is  soon  cooled ;  and  then 
the  great  work  goes  on  again,  as  calmly  and  surely  as 
before  —  that  great  work  of  educating  mankind  to  the 
level  of  constitutional  liberty,  in  which  England  has 
been  engaged  for  well-nigh  a  thousand  years,  and  in 
which  the  American  Republic,  though  sometimes  at 
variance  with  her  methods  and  her  spirit,  is,  neverthe- 
less, her  follower  and  the  consequence  of  her  example. 
Our  Declaration  was  made  in  1776:  the  Declaration  to 
the  Prince  of  Orange  is  dated  1689,  and  the  Bill  of 
Rights  1628,  while  Magna  Charta  was  secured  in  12 15. 
Throughout  every  part  of  this  sumptuous  and  splendid 
domain  of  Warwickshire  the  symbols  of  English  stability 
and  the  relics  of  historic  times  are  numerous  and  deeply 
impressive.  At  Stratford  the  reverence  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  takes  its  practical,  substantial  form,  not 
alone  in  the  honourable  preservation  of  the  ancient 
Shakespearean  shrines,  but  in  the  Shakespeare  Memo- 
rial. That  fabric,  though  mainly  due  to  the  fealty  of 
England,  is  also,  to  some  extent,  representative  of  the 
practical  sympathy  of  America.  Several  Americans  — 
Edwin  Booth,  Herman  Vezin,  M.  D.  Conway,  and  W.  H. 
Reynolds  among  them  —  were  contributors  to  the  fund 
that  built  it,  and  an  American  gentlewoman,  Miss  Kate 
Field,  has  worked  for  its  cause  with  excellent  zeal, 
untiring  fidelity,  and  good  results.  (Miss  Mary  Ander- 
son acted — 1885  —  in  the  Memorial  Theatre,  for  its 
benefit,  presenting  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  the  char- 
acter of  Rosalind.)  It  is  a  noble  monument.  It  stands 
upon  the   margin   of  the  Avon,   not  distant  from  the 


240  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

church  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  which  is  Shakespeare's 
grave ;  so  that  these  two  buildings  are  the  conspicuous 
points  of  the  landscape,  and  seem  to  confront  each 
other  with  sympathetic  greeting,  as  if  conscious  of  their 
sacred  trust.  The  vacant  land  adjacent,  extending 
between  the  road  and  the  river,  is  a  part  of  the  Memo- 
rial estate,  and  is  to  be  converted  into  a  garden,  with 
pathways,  shade-trees,  and  flowers,  —  by  means  of  which 
the  prospect  will  be  made  still  fairer  than  now  it  is,  and 
will  be  kept  forever  unbroken  between  the  Memorial 
and  the  Church.  Under  this  ample  roof  are  already 
united  a  theatre,  a  library,  and  a  hall  of  pictures.  The 
drop-curtain,  illustrating  the  processional  progress  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  when  "  going  to  the  Globe  Theatre," 
is  gay  but  incorrect.  The  divisions  of  seats  are  in  con- 
formity with  the  inconvenient  arrangements  of  the 
London  theatre  of  to-day.  Queen  Elizabeth  heard 
plays  in  the  hall  of  the  Middle  Temple,  the  hall  of 
Hampton  Palace,  and  at  Greenwich  and  at  Richmond ; 
but  she  never  went  to  the  Globe  Theatre.  In  historic 
temples  there  should  be  no  trifling  with  historic  themes ; 
and  surely,  in  a  theatre  of  the  nineteenth  century,  dedi- 
cated to  Shakespeare,  while  no  fantastic  regard  should 
be  paid  to  the  usages  of  the  past,  it  would  be  tasteful 
and  proper  to  blend  the  best  of  ancient  ways  with  all 
the  luxury  and  elegance  of  these  times.  It  is  much, 
however,  to  have  built  what  can  readily  be  made  a 
lovely  theatre ;  and  meanwhile,  through  the  affectionate 
generosity  of  friends  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  the  library 
shelves  are  continually  gathering  treasures,  and  the  hall 
of  paintings  is  growing  more  and  more  the  imposing 
expository  that  it  was  intended  to  be,  of  Shakespearean 


XXI 


niK    SHRINES   OF    WARWICKSHIRE  241 


poetry  and  the  history  of  the  Knglish  stage.  .  Many 
faces  of  actors  appear  upon  those  walls  —  from  Garrick 
to  Edmund  Kean,  from  Macready  to  Henry  Irving, 
from  Kemblc  to  Edwin  Booth,  from  Mrs.  Siddons  to 
Ellen  Terry,  Ada  Rehan,  and  Mary  Anderson.  Prom- 
inent among  the  pictures  is  a  spirited  portrait  of  Garrick 
and  his  wife,  playing  at  cards,  wherein  the  lovely,  laugh- 
ing lady  archly  discloses  that  her  hands  are  full  of 
hearts.  Not  otherwise,  truly,  is  it  with  sweet  and  gentle 
Stratford  herself,  where  peace  and  beauty  and  the  most 
hallowed  and  hallowing  of  poetic  associations  garner 
up,  forever  and  forever,  the  hearts  of  all  mankind. 

In  previous  papers  upon  this  subject  I  have  tried  to 
express  the  feelings  that  are  excited  by  personal  con- 
tact with  the  relics  of  Shakespeare  —  the  objects  that 
he  saw  and  the  fields  through  which  he  wandered. 
Fancy  would  never  tire  of  lingering  in  this  delicious 
region  of  flowers  and  of  dreams.  From  the  hideous 
vileness  of  the  social  condition  of  London  in  the  time 
of  James  the  First,  Shakespeare  must  indeed  have  re- 
joiced to  depart  into  this  blooming  garden  of  rustic 
tranquillity.  Here  also  he  could  find  the  surroundings 
that  were  needful  to  sustain  him  amid  the  vast  and 
overwhelming  labours  of  his  final  period.  No  man, 
however  great  his  powers,  can  ever,  in  this  world,  escape 
from  the  trammels  under  which  nature  enjoins  and  per- 
mits the  exercise  of  the  brain.  Ease,  in  the  intellectual 
life,  is  always  visionary.  The  higher  a  man's  faculties 
the  higher  are  his  ideals,  —  toward  which,  under  the 
operation  of  a  divine  law,  he  must  perpetually  strive, 
but  to  the  height  of  which  he  will  never  absolutely 
attain.     So,  inevitably,  it  was  with  Shakespeare.     But, 


«3 


<o 


■^ 
V 

^ 
^ 
I 


CHAP.  XXI         THE   SHRINES   OF   WARWICKSHH^E  243 

although  genius  cannot  escape  from  itself  and  is  no 
more  free  than  the  humblest  toiler  in  the  vast  scheme 
of  creation,  it  may  —  and  it  must  —  sometimes  escape 
from  the  world :  and  this  wise  poet,  of  all  men  else, 
would  surely  recognise  and  strongly  grasp  the  great 
privilege  of  solitude  amid  the  sweetest  and  most  sooth- 
ing adjuncts  of  natural  beauty.  That  privilege  he 
found  in  the  sparkling  and  fragrant  gardens  of  War- 
wick, the  woods,  fields  and  waters  of  the  Avon,  where 
he  had  played  as  a  boy,  and  where  love  had  laid  its  first 
kiss  upon  his  lips  and  poetry  first  opened  upon  his 
inspired  vision  the  eternal  glories  of  her  celestial  world. 
It  still  abides  there,  for  every  gentle  soul  that  can  feel 
its  influence  —  to  deepen  the  glow  of  noble  passion,  to 
soften  the  sting  of  grief,  and  to  touch  the  lips  of  worship 
with  a  fresh  sacrament  of  patience  and  beauty. 


THE    ANNE    HATHAWAY    COTTAGE. 

April,  1892.  —  A  record  that  all  lovers  of  the  Shake- 
speare shrines  have  long  wished  to  make  can  at  last  be 
made.  The  Anne  Hathaway  Cottage  has  been  bought 
for  the  British  Nation,  and  that  building  will  henceforth 
be  one  of  the  Amalgamated  Trusts  that  are  guarded  by 
the  corporate  authorities  of  Stratford.  The  other  Trusts 
are  the  Birthplace,  the  Museum,  and  New  Place.  The 
Mary  Arden  Cottage,  the  home  of  Shakespeare's  mother, 
is  yet  to  be  acquired. 


CHAPTER    XXII 

A    BORROWER    OF    THE    NIGHT 

"  /  must  become  a  borroiuer  of  the  night, 
For  a  dark  hour  or  twain''  —  MACBETH. 


IDNIGHT  has  just  sounded  from  the 
tower  of  St.  Martin.  It  is  a  peaceful 
night,  faintly  lit  with  stars,  and  in  the 
region  round  about  Trafalgar  Square  a 
dream-like  stillness  broods  over  the  dark- 
ened city,  now  slowly  hushing  itself  to  its  brief  and 
troubled  rest.  This  is  the  centre  of  the  heart  of  modern 
civilisation,  the  middle  of  the  greatest  city  in  the  world 
—  the  vast,  seething  alembic  of  a  grand  future,  the 
stately  monument  of  a  deathless  past.  Here,  alone,  in 
my  quiet  room  of  this  old  English  inn,  let  me  meditate 
a  while  on  some  of  the  scenes  that  are  near  me  —  the 
strange,  romantic,  sad,  grand  objects  that  I  have  seen, 
the  memorable  figures  of  beauty,  genius,  and  renown  that 
haunt  this  classic  land. 

How  solemn  and  awful  now  must  be  the  gloom  within 
the  walls  of  the  Abbey !     A  walk  of  only  a  few  minutes 

244 


Church  of  St.  Martin. 


246  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

would  bring  me  to  its  gates  —  the  gates  of  the  most 
renowned  mausoleum  on  earth.  No  human  foot  to-night 
invades  its  sacred  precincts.  The  dead  alone  possess  it. 
I  see,  upon  its  gray  walls,  the  marble  figures,  white  and 
spectral,  staring  through  the  darkness.  I  hear  the  night- 
wind  moaning  around  its  lofty  towers  and  faintly  sob- 
bing in  the  dim,  mysterious  spaces  beneath  its  fretted 
roof.  Here  and  there  a  ray  of  starlight,  streaming 
through  the  sumptuous  rose  window,  falls  and  lingers, 
in  ruby  or  emerald  gleam,  on  tomb,  or  pillar,  or  dusky 
pavement.  Rustling  noises,  vague  and  fearful,  float 
from  those  dim  chapels  where  the  great  kings  lie  in 
state,  with  marble  effigies  recumbent  above  their  bones. 
At  such  an  hour  as  this,  in  such  a  place,  do  the  dead 
come  out  of  their  graves .''  The  resolute,  implacable 
Queen  Elizabeth,  the  beautiful,  ill-fated  Queen  of  Scots, 
the  royal  boys  that  perished  in  the  Tower,  Charles  the 
Merry  and  William  the  Silent  —  are  these,  and  such 
as  these,  among  the  phantoms  that  fill  the  haunted 
aisles  ?  What  a  wonderful  company  it  would  be,  for 
human  eyes  to  behold !  And  with  what  passionate 
love  or  hatred,  what  amazement,  or  what  haughty  scorn, 
its  members  would  look  upon  each  other's  faces,  in  this 
miraculous  meeting  ?  Here,  through  the  glimmering, 
icy  waste,  would  pass  before  the  watcher  the  august 
shades  of  the  poets  of  five  hundred  years.  Now  would 
glide  the  ghosts  of  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Jonson,  Beau- 
mont, Dryden,  Cowley,  Congreve,  Addison,  Prior,  Camp- 
bell, Garrick,  Burke,  Sheridan,  Newton,  and  Macaulay 
—  children  of  divine  genius,  that  here  mingled  with  the 
earth.  The  grim  Edward,  who  so  long  ravaged  Scot- 
land ;    the   blunt,    chivalrous    Henry,    who    conquered 


XXII 


A    BORROWER   OF   THE   NIGHT  247 


France  ;  the  lovely,  lamentable  victim  at  Pomfrct,  and 
the  harsh,  haughty,  astute  victor  at  Bosworth  ;  James 
with  his  babbling  tongue,  and  William  with  his  impas- 
sive, predominant  visage  —  they  would  all  mingle  with 
the  spectral  multitude  and  vanish  into  the  gloom. 
Gentler  faces,  too,  might  here  once  more  reveal  their 
loveliness  and  their  grief  —  Eleanor  de  Bohun,  broken- 
hearted for  her  murdered  lord  ;  Elizabeth  Claypole,  the 
meek,  merciful,  beloved  daughter  of  Cromwell ;  Matilda, 
Queen  to  Henry  the  First,  and  model  of  every  grace 
and  virtue;  and  sweet  Anne  Neville,  destroyed  —  if  his 
enemies  told  the  truth  —  by  the  politic  craft  of  Gloster. 
Strange  sights,  truly,  in  the  lonesome  Abbey  to-night ! 

In  the  sombre  crypt  beneath  St.  Paul's  cathedral  how 
thrilling  now  must  be  the  heavy  stillness !  No  sound 
can  enter  there.  No  breeze  from  the  upper  world  can 
stir  the  dust  upon  those  massive  sepulchres.  Even  in 
day-time  that  shadowy  vista,  with  its  groined  arches 
and  the  black  tombs  of  Wellington  and  Nelson  and  the 
ponderous  funeral-car  of  the  Iron  Duke,  is  seen  with  a 
shudder.  How  strangely,  how  fearfully  the  mind  would 
be  impressed,  of  him  who  should  wander  there  to-night ! 
What  sublime  reflections  would  be  his,  standing  beside 
the  ashes  of  the  great  admiral,  and  thinking  of  that 
fiery,  dauntless  spirit  —  so  simple,  resolute,  and  true  — 
who  made  the  earth  and  the  sea  alike  resound  with  the 
splendid  tumult  of  his  deeds.  Somewhere  beneath  this 
pavement  is  the  dust  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  —  buried 
here  before  the  destruction  of  the  old  cathedral,  in  the 
great  fire  of  1666  —  and  here,  too,  is  the  nameless  grave 
of  the  mighty  Duke  of  Lancaster,  John  of  Gaunt. 
Shakespeare  was  only  twenty-two  years  old  when  Sidney 


248  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  xxii 

fell,  at  the  battle  of  Zutphen,  and,  being  then  resident 
in  London,  he  might  readily  have  seen,  and  doubtless 
did  see,  the  splendid  funeral  procession  with  which  the 
body  of  that  heroic  gentleman  —  radiant  and  immortal 
example  of  perfect  chivalry  —  was  borne  to  the  tomb. 
Hither  came  Henry  of  Hereford  —  returning  from  exile 
and  deposing  the  handsome,  visionary,  useless  Richard 

—  to  mourn  over  the  relics  of  his  father,  dead  of  sorrow 
for  his  son's  absence  and  his  country's  shame.  Here, 
at  the  venerable  age  of  ninety-one,  the  glorious  brain  of 
Wren  found  rest  at  last,  beneath  the  stupendous  temple 
that  himself  had  reared.  The  watcher  in  the  crypt  to- 
night would  see,  perchance,  or  fancy  that  he  saw,  those 
figures  from  the  storied  past.  Beneath  this  roof  — -  the 
soul  and  the  perfect  symbol  of  sublimity  !  —  are  ranged 
more  than  fourscore  monuments  to  heroic  martial  per- 
sons who  have  died  for  England,  by  land  or  sea.  Here, 
too,  are  gathered  in  everlasting  repose  the  honoured 
relics  of  men  who  were  famous  in  the  arts  of  peace. 
Reynolds  and  Opie,  Lawrence  and  West,  Landseer, 
Turner,  Cruikshank,  and  many  more,  sleep  under  the 
sculptured  pavement  where  now  the  pilgrim  walks.  For 
fifteen  centuries  a  Christian  church  has  stood  upon  this 
spot,  and  through  it  has  poured,  with  organ  strains  and 
glancing  lights,  an  endless  procession  of  prelates  and 
statesmen,  of  poets  and  \varriors  and  kings.  Surely 
this  is  hallowed  and  haunted  ground !  Surely  to  him 
the  spirits  of  the  mighty  dead  would  be  very  near,  who 

—  alone,  in  the  darkness  —  should  stand  to-night  within 
those  sacred  walls,  and  hear,  beneath  that  awful  dome, 
the  mellow  thunder  of  the  bells  of  God. 

How  looks,  to-night,  the  interior  of  the  chapel  of  the 


250  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

Foundling  hospital  ?  Dark  and  lonesome,  no  doubt, 
with  its  heavy  galleries  and  sombre  pews,  and  the  great 
organ  —  Handel's  gift  —  standing  there,  mute  and  grim, 
between  the  ascending  tiers  of  empty  seats.  But  never, 
in  my  remembrance,  will  it  cease  to  present  a  picture 
more  impressive  and  touching  than  words  can  say. 
Scores  of  white-robed  children,  rescued  from  shame  and 
penury  by  this  noble  benevolence,  were  ranged  around 
that  organ  when  I  saw  it,  and,  with  artless,  frail  little 
voices,  singing  a  hymn  of  praise  and  worship.  Well- 
nigh  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  have  passed  since  this 
grand  institution  of  charity  —  the  sacred  work  and 
blessed  legacy  of  Captain  Thomas  Coram  —  was  estab- 
lished in  this  place.  What  a  divine  good  it  has  accom- 
plished, and  continues  to  accomplish,  and  what  a  pure 
glory  hallows  its  founder's  name !  Here  the  poor 
mother,  betrayed  and  deserted,  may  take  her  child  and 
find  for  it  a  safe  and  happy  home  and  a  chance  in  life 
—  nor  will  she  herself  be  turned  adrift  without  sym- 
pathy and  help.  The  poet  and  novelist  George  Croly 
was  once  chaplain  of  the  Foundling  hospital,  and  he 
preached  some  noble  sermons  there ;  but  these  were 
thought  to  be  above  the  comprehension  of  his  usual 
audience,  and  he  presently  resigned  the  place.  Sidney 
Smith  often  spoke  in  this  pulpit,  when  a  young  man. 
It  was  an  aged  clergyman  who  preached  there  within 
my  hearing,  and  I  remember  he  consumed  the  most 
part  of  an  hour  in  saying  that  a  good  way  in  which 
to  keep  the  tongue  from  speaking  evil  is  to  keep  the 
heart  kind  and  pure.  Better  than  any  sermon,  though, 
was  the  spectacle  of  those  poor  children,  rescued  out 
of  their  helplessness  and  reared  in  comfort  and  affec- 


XXII 


A   BORROWER   OF  THE   NIGHT 


251 


tion.  Several  fine  works  of  art  are  owned  by  this  hos- 
pital and  shown  to  visitors  —  paintings  by  Gainsborough 
and  Reynolds,  and  a  portrait  of  Captain  Coram,  by  Ho- 
garth. May  the 
turf  lie  lightly 
on  him,  and  dai- 
sies and  violets 
deck  his  hal- 
lowed grave  ! 
No  man  ever  did 
a  better  deed 
than  he,  and  the 
darkest  night 
that  ever  was 
cannot  darken 
his  fame. 

How  dim  and 
silent  now  are 
all  those  narrow 
and  dingy  little 
streets  and  lanes 
around  Paul's 
churchyard  and 
the  Temple, 
where  Johnson 
and  Goldsmith 
loved  to  ramble ! 
More  than  once 
have  I  wandered  there,  in  the  late  hours  of  the  night, 
meeting  scarce  a  human  creature,  but  conscious  of  a 
royal  company  indeed,  of  the  wits  and  poets  and  play- 
ers of  a  far-off  time.     Darkness  now,  on  busy  Smith- 


MiddU   Temple  Lane. 


252  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap. 

field,  where  once  the  frequent,  cruel  flames  of  bigotry 
shed  forth  a  glare  that  sickened  the  light  of  day. 
Murky  and  grim  enough  to-night  is  that  grand  pro- 
cessional walk  in  St.  Bartholomew's  church,  where 
the  great  gray  pillars  and  splendid  Norman  arches  of 
the  twelfth  century  are  mouldering  in  neglect  and 
decay.  Sweet  to  fancy  and  dear  in  recollection,  the 
old  church  comes  back  to  me  now,  with  the  sound 
of  children's  voices  and  the  wail  of  the  organ  strangely 
breaking  on  its  pensive  rest.  Stillness  and  peace 
over  arid  Bunhill  Fields  —  the  last  haven  of  many  a 
Puritan  worthy,  and  hallowed  to  many  a  pilgrim  as 
the  resting-place  of  Bunyan  and  of  Watts.  In  many  a 
park  and  gloomy  square  the  watcher  now  would  hear 
only  a  rustling  of  leaves  or  the  fretful  twitter  of  half- 
awakened  birds.  Around  Primrose  Hill  and  out  toward 
Hampstead  many  a  night-walk  have  I  taken,  that 
seemed  like  rambling  in  a  desert  —  so  dark  and  still  are 
the  walled  houses,  so  perfect  is  the  solitude.  In  Drury 
Lane,  even  at  this  late  hour,  there  would  be  some  move- 
ment ;  but  cold  and  dense  as  ever  the  shadows  are  rest- 
ing on  that  little  graveyard  behind  it,  where  Lady 
Dedlock  went  to  die.  To  walk  in  Bow  Street  now,  — 
might  it  not  be  to  meet  the  shades  of  Waller  and 
Wycherley  and  Betterton,  who  lived  and  died  there ;  to 
have  a  greeting  from  the  silver-tongued  Barry  ;  or  to 
see,  in  draggled  lace  and  ruffles,  the  stalwart  figure  and 
flushed  and  roystering  countenance  of  Henry  Fielding .'' 
Very  quiet  now  are  those  grim  stone  chambers  in  the 
terrible  Tower  of  London,  where  so  many  tears  have 
fallen  and  so  many  noble  hearts  been  split  with  sorrow. 
Does  Brackenbury  still  kneel  in  the  cold,  lonely,  vacant 


XXII 


A   BORROWER   OF  THE   NIGHT 


253 


chapel  of  St.  John ;  or  the  sad  ghost  of  Monmouth 
hover  in  the  chancel  of  St.  Peter's.?  How  sweet  tO' 
night  would  be  the  rustle  of  the  ivy  on  the  dark  wall? 
of  Hadley  church,  where  late  I  breathed  the  rose-scented 
air  and  heard  the  warbling  thrush,  and  blessed,  with 
a  grateful  heart,  the  loving  kindness  that  makes  such 
beauty  in  the  world ! 
Out  there  on  the  hill- 
side of  Highgate,  pop- 
ulous with  death,  the 


starlight 


gleams     on 


many  a  ponderous 
tomb  and  the  white 
marble  of  many  a 
sculptured  statue, 
where  dear  and  fa- 
mous names  will  lure 
the  traveller's  foot- 
steps for  years  to 
come.  There  Lynd- 
hurst  rests,  in  honour 
and  peace,  and  there 
is  hushed  the  tuneful 
voice   of    Dempster — - 

never  to  be  heard  any  more,  either  when  snows  are 
flying  or  "when  green  leaves  come  again."  Not  many 
days  have  passed  since  I  stood  there,  by  the  humble 
gravestone  of  poor  Charles  Harcourt,  that  fine  actor, 
and  remembered  all  the  gentle  enthusiasm  with  which 
(1877)  he  spoke  to  me  of  the  character  of  Jaques  — 
which  he  loved  —  and  how  well  he  repeated  the  im- 
mortal lines  upon  the  drama  of  human  life.     For  him 


The  Castle  Ini, 


254  SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND  chap,  xxii 

the  "strange,  eventful  history"  came  early  and  sud- 
denly to .  an  end.  In  that  ground,  too,  I  saw  the  sculp- 
tured medallion  of  the  well-beloved  George  Honey  — 
"all  his  frolics  o'er"  and  nothing  left  but  this.  Many 
a  golden  moment  did  we  have,  old  friend,  and  by  me 
thou  art  not  forgotten !  The  lapse  of  a  few  years 
changes  the  whole  face  of  life ;  but  nothing  can  ever 
take  from  us  our  memories  of  the  past.  ITf^'e,  around 
me,  in  the  still  watches  of  the  night,  are  the  faces  that 
will  never  smile  again,  and  the  voices  that  will  speak 
no  more —  Sothern,  with  his  silver  hair  and  bright  and 
kindly  smile,  from  the  spacious  cemetery  of  Southamp- 
ton ;  and  droll  Harry  Beckett  and  poor  Adelaide  Neil- 
son  from  dismal  Brompton.  And  if  I  look  from  yonder 
window  I  shall  not  see  either  the  lions  of  Landseer  or 
the  homeless  and  vagrant  wretches  who  sleep  around 
them ;  but  high  in  her  silver  chariot,  surrounded  with 
all  the  pomp  and  splendour  that  royal  England  knows, 
and  marching  to  her  coronation  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
the  beautiful  figure  of  Anne  Boleyn,  with  her  dark  eyes 
full  of  triumph  and  her  torrent  of  golden  hair  flashing 
in  the  sun.  On  this  spot  is  written  the  whole  history 
of  a  mighty  empire.  Here  are  garnered  up  such  loves 
and  hopes,  such  memories  and  sorrows,  as  can  never  be 
spoken.  Pass,  ye  shadows !  Let  the  night  wane  and 
the  morning  break. 


) 

THE    END 


/  /-. 


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